News Stories
Going beyond the bar: VIU students research Nanaimo’s culinary past
April 24, 2024
New exhibit tackling Nanaimo’s food histories now open at the Nanaimo Museum. Beyond its famous, eponymous bar, Nanaimo’s culinary history is not widely renowned. A new museum exhibit created by two Vancouver Island University (VIU) History classes aims to alter that perception. During the Spring Semester, students from Dr. Chelsea Horton’s History of Vancouver Island class collaborated with Dr... Read more
Putting a human face to the Canadian war experience
November 7, 2023
Expert commentary with Dr. Stephen Davies, Director of the Canadian Letters and Images Project Vancouver Island University History Professor Dr. Stephen Davies is founder of the Canadian Letters and Images Project, an online, digital archive of Canadian wartime letters and related materials. He started the project in 2000 to help his students understand the First and Second World Wars. Over the... Read more
VIU and community partners remember local fallen soldiers through video memorial
November 1, 2023
VIU video project acknowledges Nanaimo soldiers’ contributions to the First and Second World Wars. A Vancouver Island University (VIU) video memorial project that tells the story of Nanaimo soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice during the First and Second World Wars will be displayed across the city. For the 11 days leading up to Remembrance Day, the Nanaimo Remembers project will display the... Read more
VIU researcher examining pelvic health histories to help address gaps and inequities in care
March 15, 2023
Dr. Whitney Wood received more than half a million dollars from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to pursue her study. Studies on women’s health tend to focus on reproduction. Vancouver Island University (VIU) researcher Dr. Whitney Wood believes this has led to gaps and inequities in care. Wood, VIU’s Canada Research Chair in the Historical Dimensions of Women’s Health, argues... Read more
VIU experts appear live on CBC Nanaimo broadcast
January 27, 2023
Several shows were broadcasting from Serious Coffee on Hammond Bay Road The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation launched its permanent bureau in Nanaimo on Friday, January 27 with a special live broadcast in the Harbour City that featured several experts from Vancouver Island University. The Nanaimo bureau “will focus on telling stories from the mid-and-north Vancouver Island region” states a CBC... Read more
VIU and community partners remember local fallen armed forces members through video memorial
October 28, 2022
VIU video project acknowledges Nanaimo armed forces members' contributions to the First and Second World Wars. Private Reginald Edgar Emblem, a farmer and resident of South Wellington, served in the 72nd Battalion during the First World War. He died at age 20 of influenza and pneumonia in October 1918 and was buried at Seaford Cemetery in Sussex, United Kingdom. Private William Armstrong Syer, a... Read more
5 Questions with Kelly Black
September 27, 2022
Kelly Black, a Vancouver Island University Adjunct History Professor, received the Anne and Philip Yandle Best Article Award from the BC Historical Federation this June. The article, “Explaining Settlers to Ourselves: Rethinking interpretive narratives at heritage sites” was published in the spring 2021 edition of British Columbia History magazine. Black has more than a decade of experience in... Read more
VIU students create community exhibit at Nanaimo Museum
June 15, 2022
Exhibit, which explores the history behind some of city’s more unusual street names, runs until June 25. Nanaimo is home to many streets with less-than-common names, such as Dingle Bingle Hill Road and Bergen Op Zoom Drive. Between January and April, students in two upper-level history courses at Vancouver Island University (VIU) researched the intriguing stories of how these roads acquired... Read more
VIU Researcher Exploring Changing Attitudes Towards Childbirth
December 2, 2021
Project focuses on “natural” and medicalized childbirth in mid-to-late 20th century Canada. Building on a decade of work on the histories of women's health, bodies and pain, Dr. Whitney Wood, VIU’s Canada Research Chair in the Historical Dimensions of Women’s Health, is exploring changing attitudes towards childbirth in mid-to-late 20th century Canada. Beginning in the 1930s, and especially in... Read more
Speaker Series Highlights Innovative Research in the History of Gender and Health
November 9, 2021
The Gender, Health and Social Justice Speaker Series presented by VIU and the University of Saskatchewan is offered for free via Zoom and kicks off on November 19. A speaker series running this winter and spring will introduce attendees to the innovative scholarship being done by early-career researchers in the history of gender and health. “The conversations taking place around this research... Read more