Jeanne Clarke Awards
The Jeanne Clarke Award is presented annually by the Prince George Public Library to individuals or groups for outstanding contributions in the preservation and promotion of local history in the categories of Publication and Service.
The award is presented in February of each year during Heritage Week.
Bill Poser
Local History Service Award
Poser’s exceptional dedication to the documentation, preservation, and revitalization of Dakelh language and history spans more than three decades, and his contributions have had a profound and lasting impact on Indigenous language work in our region and beyond.
Ray Olson & Linda Campbell
Local History Service Award
Olson and Campbell (known affectionately as the “Train Lady”) are being recognized for their work sharing and promoting the history of the small towns and communities located east of Prince George on the “East Line,” via their train visits through that region.
Lorraine Weir and Chief Roger William
Publication Award
Lha Yudit’ih We Always Find a Way – Bringing the Tsilhqot’in Title Case Home
This book encompasses ancient stories of creation, modern stories of genocide through smallpox and residential school, and stories of resistance including the Tŝilhqot’in War, direct actions against logging and mining, and the twenty-five-year battle in Canadian courts to win recognition of what Tŝilhqot’ins never gave up and have always known.
Jonathan Swainger
Publication Award
The Notorious Georges
This story takes up the origins of Prince George’s long standing reputation as a rough and tumble “gritty mill town.” The book explores how the pursuit of respectability collided with caricatures of a boozy and ill-mannered white settlement frontier in the years straddling World War One.
- The wild horses of the Chilcotin : their history and future / Wayne McCrory. Harbour Publishing, 2023.
- The Notorious Georges : crime and community in British Columbia's northern interior, 1909-25 / Jonathan Swainger. UBC Press for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 2023.
- Knots & stitches : community quilts across the harbour / Kristin Miller. Caitlin Press, 2023.
- A gentleman of considerable talent : William Brown and the fur trade, 1811-1827 / Geoff Mynett. Caitlin Press, 2024.
- Lha yudit'ih we always find a way : bringing the Tŝilhqot'in title case home / Lorraine Weir with Chief Roger William. Talonbooks, 2023.
- Going north : memorabilia of tourism in Alaska, Yukon, and Northern British Columbia / by Stan Cohen. Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2024.
- Shattered glass : sonic epilogues; tales and knowledge from luminary musicians / Mike Gouchie. BWL Publishing Inc., 2025.
The 41st annual Jeanne Clarke Local History Awards were held on February 22, 2026 at the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre.
The event was filmed courtesy of Rogers TV and is available to watch on YouTube.
The Jeanne Clarke Memorial local history award was established by the Prince George Public Library board in 1985, in memory of Jeanne Clarke, a former board chair who served on the library board from 1978 to 1984.
Jeanne was a member of the prominent pioneer Robert and Susan Carter family. Newly employed by the provincial government, Jeanne's father, a 20-year-old World War I veteran, arrived in Prince George in 1919. He worked as a junior clerk in the then frontier town of Prince George. Shortly after his arrival, Robert Carter met his future wife, Miss Susan E. McLaughlin, who was a school teacher at South Fort George. The Carters had three daughters: Mrs. Jeanne Clarke, who stayed in Prince George, Mrs. Barbara Lindop of Ottawa, and Mrs. Shirley Corbett of Newton, North Carolina. Jeanne Clarke was a founding member of the Prince George Public Library's Local History Committee, and played a key role in establishing the Prince George Public Library's local history collection.
In 1993, the library board added a "publication" category to the award so that one or more people could be recognized for producing a work of local history in addition to those recognized for their service in local history.
The award is presented at the Prince George Public Library Board's annual local history reception held each February.