Voices from the Past

As the wife of a logger, Dora Kloss spent forty years in British Columbia’s wildest terrain, from 1934 to 1974. In her interview, Dora speaks about her experience as a wife and the challenges of living in a logging camp. She shares her stories with interviewer Derek Reimer.

How would you compare Dora’s experience in the BC logging camps with the experiences of Jack Vetleson and George Lutz?

These two short clips are taken from a much larger interview with Paddy Acland. There are so many fantastic stories in the hours of tape Imbert Orchart recorded with Paddy. In the first clip Paddy Acland recalls, as he says, “his whole life story before the war.” In the second clip he discusses his experiences as one of the first fighter pilots during the First World War.

What are the elements of a good storyteller? Would you consider Paddy a good storyteller?

The largest oral history collection at the BC Archives is the Imbert Orchard Collection. It is comprised of almost 1,000 interviews recorded throughout the province in the 1960s. The following clips feature Imbert Orchard on the other side of the microphone. Imbert, as interviewed by Derek Reimer, discusses his strong first impression of British Columbia and the challenges he faced when he first began interviewing.

In the last clip, Imbert Orchard describes his very first oral interview, conducted with Constance Cox in 1960.

Have you ever conducted an oral interview? What questions would you ask?

During the time of this interview, both men were supervisors at Canadian Forest Products Ltd. on northern Vancouver Island. Their interview focuses mainly on their experience as coastal BC loggers and their experiences in the 1940s logging camps.

Oral interviews are rarely done in pairs. Why do you think interviewer Derek Reimer chose to record George and Jack together?