2023 Jeanne Clarke Awards

Service Award Winner

The 2023 Service Award was bestowed to two Prince George locals, Elder Edie Frederick and Jennifer Annaïs Pighin for their individual, and sometimes combined, contributions to preserving and promoting local history.

Edie Frederick is a Lheidli T’enneh Elder dedicated to, and passionate about, preserving local Lheidli T’enneh history and the Dakelh language. As the Nusdeh Yoh Learning Commons website confirms, “under the guidance of Lheidli Elder Edie Frederick, Nusdeh Yoh Elementary School has been working to ensure that the local Dakelh language is learned and remembered by the next generation. It is our hope that through our children, this part of our heritage will remain on this territory for generations to come.” Over the years Edie has created many language videos and is an active member of the ‘Atsiyan Ink’E ‘Atsoo Elders Society and the Dakelh Language Lessons Facebook group. Edie is a keeper of traditional stories from this region. Edie was instrumental to the creation of the Lheidli Dakelh Dictionary and has done significant translation work, including for the recently published children’s book Ceepee and the Fish Camp, for which Jennifer Annaïs Pighin also provided the First Nation artistic book designs.

Jennifer Annaïs Pighin grew up on the banks of the Nechako River at Lhezbawnichek/Miworth, BC, and is a visual artist and educator living in Prince George, BC. She has been an active member of the local arts and culture scene for decades. Jennifer’s passion for language and cultural preservation have an impact on our entire community through her role as the Vice Principal of Language and Culture at School District 57 Indigenous Education Department, the Board Chair of the Omineca Arts Centre, and as one of the founding members, and Directors, of the Northern Indigenous Artist Council. Jennifer is a teacher and learner of the Lheidli T'enneh Dakelh dialect and encourages the students and staff to learn conversational Dakelh by hosting weekly virtual language lessons with the support of Lheidli Elders. She is a traditional knowledge keeper, an educator and a cultural ambassador. She has led the Khast'an Drummers while sharing the stories behind the songs, which are often connected to the land and the history of Lheidli T'enneh.

Publication Award Winner

The 2023 Publication Award was bestowed to Liz Bryan for her book Adventure Roads of BC's Northwest Heartland. Although Liz Bryan wasn’t able to attend the celebration in person, her video acceptance speech shared her thanks and gratitude for the honour of winning the award. She explained, “I have been exploring BC for many years — mostly along the backroads— and finding, not only delight in the amazing scenery but also a way back into time. The history of BC unfolds along every First Nations trail and in their villages; then there are fur trading posts, gold rush roads and camps, old churches, pioneer ranchers and settlements, mines and railways, and forgotten graveyards. There is history and wonder everywhere. I hope that my books and photographs encourage people stuck in the big cities and wired into the technology of our times, to seek adventures for themselves. To put their footprints where others have long trod. Again, my thanks, and keep travelling!”

Publication Finalists

Alone in the Great Unknown: One Woman's Remarkable Adventures in the Northwest Wilderness by Caroll Simpson

"The inspiring story of how an urban woman came to own and operate a remote fishing lodge nestled deep in the British Columbian wilderness. When Caroll Simpson fell in love with a cabin located on pristine Babine Lake in BC, many miles away from her home in Washington State, she knew her life was about to change. After convincing her husband to abandon their dream of living aboard a sailboat, they began the complicated process of buying the lodge and moving north. For two years, their adventure was a blissful dream. Then, tragedy struck. Following the sudden death of her husband, Simpson was forced to decide her next move alone, amidst deep grief would she sell the lodge, or would she stay, continuing the process of pursuing Canadian citizenship and running this remote lodge by herself? No easy feat, given accessing the lodge in summer required a forty-mile round trip by boat and, in the winter, a passage on an ice breaker barge and a treacherous snowshoe trek. This heartfelt memoir tells Simpson's story of living in the remote wilderness and managing the lodge, becoming an accidental environmental activist, fending off wild animals, working as an angling guide and finally, at the height of her career, fighting off a proposed mining operation and participating in the development of a government land plan as a spokesperson for the wilderness tourism industry."

Adventure Roads of BC's Northwest Heartland by Liz Bryan

"An off-the-beaten track exploration of Interior BC, full of scenic photography, maps, and fascinating information for tourists and armchair travellers alike. From lush forests to majestic mountains, sleepy ghost towns to pastoral farmland, Adventure Roads of BC’s Northwest Heartland captures the beauty, history, and unexpected twists and turns of a region often overlooked by tourists and ideal for would-be road trippers. Fuelled by the philosophy that any road can lead to adventure—not always of the visceral sort, but of the mind and heart—travel writer, historian, and photographer Liz Bryan takes readers on a virtual tour. Taking scenic routes from Merritt to Barkerville, Kamloops to Bella Coola, and into the valleys of the Bulkley and Skeena Rivers, Bryan tells the story of this land, its peoples, and their history. With stunning photography and fascinating prose, this book will compel anyone to follow their own adventure road, wherever it may take them."

Ceepee and the Fish Camp by Huble Homestead/Giscome Portage Heritage Society, with Watercolour Illustrations by Cliff Mann, First Nation Designs by Jennifer Annïs Pighin, and Dakelh Translation by Edith Frederick

"Ceepee and her family travel throughout their keyoh (territory) all year long, gathering food and supplies in preparation for the long khui (winter). She can't wait until late shen (summer), when they will go to the lhukw ba nits'unih (fish camp) for the talukw nadleh (salmon run)!" Set in the early 1900s and inspired by the seasonal round of the Lheidli T'enneh, Ceepee and the Fish Camp incorporates vocabulary in Dakelh, the traditional language of the Lheidli people"

I Hear The Mountain Calling by Clarence Boudreau with Tracey Brown

This book is an eclectic collection of stories about Clarence Boudreau's life, told in his own words with his own unique style and sense of humour.

Reading this book, you will come to personally know Clarence as he shares stories about his family, his friends, and his love of the mountains and the outdoors. At the age of fifteen he started his career as a flunky in the cookhouse, then moved on to hand-falling with a crosscut saw, horse logging, and working in the sawmill. Over the years he served as a bush foreman, rancher, snowplowing contractor, forest warden, fire fighter, bridge builder, and as the manager of a salmon hatchery.

While working to support his family, Clarence invested all his free time exploring the forests and waterways around his home town of Penny, BC., hiking and watching grizzlies in the nearby mountains, and hunting and fishing along the upper Fraser River.

Clarence lived in Penny for eighty years before relocating to his current home on the banks of the Nechako River in Prince George, BC. He currently spends his time writing songs, singing, telling jokes, and entertaining his many friends with stories of days gone by.

Castle to Cabins: Random Memories of My Life by Olga (Horn) Boudreau

"This is the story of Olga (Horn) Boudreau, wife, mother, grandmother, and adventurer. In 1950, rebellious and longing to live life on her own terms, Olga left a comfortable lifestyle in Kelowna and struck out for the backwoods of northern British Columbia. After securing her teacher certificate, she landed a teaching job for the tiny two room school in Penny. When she stepped off the train into the sawmill town of Penny, she found herself in a bustling world tucked between the mountains and the river, and accessible only by rail. A world without electricity or phones, and filled with moose, bear, beaver, and fish, and the men who worked at sawmilling and logging. The world of Penny was so captivating and compelling that it held her fascination for more than 60 years. There she found romance, got married, and raised five children in a small house nestled at the base of Red Mountain. Written as a legacy for her family and friends, this book is an intimate account of Olga Boudreau's life, to be enjoyed moment by moment, just as she lived it."

Crossing the Divide: Discovering a Wilderness Ethic in Canada's Northern Rockies by Caroll Simpson

"In Crossing The Divide Wayne Sawchuk takes us from his early days as a logger and trapper to his role in creating the largest protected wilderness area in BC's Northern Rockies. Sawchuk, who grew up near Chetwynd in the province's northeast, spent many years logging with his father in watersheds around the province. Then in 1985, he helped his uncle build a trapper's cabin at Mayfield Lake in the Northern Rockies and eventually bought the trapline. That was the start of his career as a conservationist. Through the 1990s he began taking extended horse packing trips into the area and devoted himself to creating the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area, 6.5 million hectares of land where intact ecosystems co-exist with carefully regulated resource extraction. "It is," says Sawchuk, winner of the BC Environmental Achievement Award, "an incredible experiment where we can maintain a sustainable economy and keep the wild heart of Canada's Northern Rockies beating strong forever."

Local schooling: a brief history of the first six decades of formal education in the Fraser Fort George Region by Tiiu Noukas

This is a compilation of articles first written for the Prince George Retired Teachers’ Association newsletters between 2015 – 2020 explaining how formal schooling began in the Fraser Fort George region.

Learn more about the Jeanne Clarke Awards for Local History