Community Life

• These hobnailed boots were made in Maillardville and were a fundamental part of safety for the mill.
• Their most notable safety feature is the hobnail soles combined with iron toes.
• Men working for the Canadian Western Lumber Company would have worn boots like these during their long shifts at Fraser Mills.
• Navigating slippery, sawdust covered floors, and slick moisture covered logs required extra grip from the metal studs seen on these boots.
• As logs were dragged up from the Fraser River and onto the conveyor belt, conditions underfoot were quite precarious.
• Hobnailed boots like these kept many a worker safe and able to work effectively.
• John Graveling, a local Maillardville shoemaker, made these boots for James Joseph Noel Bernard Allard.

From Stump to Ship: A 1930’s Logging Film

US Government Film

“1930 – The long log drive: a spring journey down icy streams and rivers moving logs from the forest to the mill for sawing into boards, laths, and clapboards. For more than 150 years, logging techniques remained the same. Men cut trees by hand and loaded them on horse-drawn sleds to be hauled over snow to the river. Skilled river drivers maneuvered the logs downstream, risking their limbs and lives every day.”

• An index typewriter was made for people who did a lot of one-handed typing.
• They were more affordable and portable than a standard keyboard typewriter, like an iPhone is smaller and easier to carry than an iPad.
• Unlike typewriters with keyboards, who had the same letter layout that we still use today (QWERTY), the letter layout of these typewriters were different based on the brand.
• They were made between the mid-1880s up to the middle of the 20th century.
• A woman could buy one of these for a modest price and be more desirable to hire as a typist/stenographer because she had her own machine and knew how to type.
• This typewriter was made in Germany.

1900s School, Hospital Ward, Orphanage, Women Working

The Kino Library

“From the Kinolibrary Archive Film collections.”

• Bing Arto Stone Blocks were like early Lego.
• These blocks were made in 1915 and would have been played with by boys and girls.
• The many pieces could be used to create many different structures.
• There was a booklet that came with the blocks that was full of all sorts of different ideas and plans.
• They were intended to inspire children to have an interest in construction and architecture.

Vancouver 1907

Rhett Rowe

“Early footage of Vancouver, B.C. (Canada) shot by U.S. filmmaker William Harbeck — who perished at the age of 44 filming the Titanic’s maiden voyage just under 5 years later.”

• Baseball was a very popular pastime in Maillardville.
• The Asahi Baseball Club was a local team made up of Japanese Canadians. The team was founded in 1914 and operated until 1941. They won five straight titles from 1937-1941 in the Pacific Northwest Japanese Baseball Championship.

The Vancouver Asahi – Nikkei Stories

Orbit Films Inc. Narrated by Samuel Araki

“This is a story of the legendary Vancouver Asahi baseball team. The Asahi was a Japanese Canadian baseball club in Vancouver (1914–42). One of the city’s most dominant amateur teams, the Asahi used skill and tactics to win multiple league titles in Vancouver and along the Northwest Coast.

In 1942, the team was disbanded when its members were among more than 21,000 Japanese Canadians interned by the federal government. The Asahi were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003 and the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.”

• This Scrolling Chalkboard was made by the National School Slate Co in Slatington, Pennsylvania. NSSC started in 1884 and was in business under a few different owners until 1950.
• By 1941 there were two companies in the USA that provided slate to schools, the NSSC and American Slate Works, both in Slatington. Slatington provided slate for school use but by 1940s chalkboards were more popular. Slate is a stone product, while chalkboards are made from porcelain paint on metal or wood.
• Many versions of these scrolling chalkboards were made with different animals, plants, and historical people. It is possible that one might have been able to customize them.
• Slates were originally small, and each child had one in class. A teacher would go around to each student to check their work.
• In the late 1800s large chalkboards were beginning to show up in classrooms which made teaching classes easier. Rather than the white boards many schools have today, chalkboards were where children would look to see what the teacher wanted them write.