Another valuable collection of forest history primary sources diverted from the landfill and into the archives.

I regret that I never got the chance to meet Richard Herring while he was alive. I’m sure that he could have shared many great stories about life both working and playing in North American forests. Mr Herring died in April, and it was via an email on a local forestry list-serve from Marian Hammond, Mr Herring’s former care-giver/personal assistant, that we were able to connect and shepherd this material into UBC Special Collections.

Marian tells us that “Richard, or Dick as he was known by those in his inner circle, was truly an outdoorsman. With his computer, his gun and his bagpipe, he would have been content to live under a tree. Perhaps also a wee dram of a good single malt.”

Reading off of Mr Herring’s resume, we learn that he was born in the US, and he completed a Bachelor’s degree in Forestry at the University of Michigan. Mr Herring was variously a logger, a river driver, and a canoeman in several locations in the US and Canada. He was also an axeman on prospecting ventures in the Hudson’s Bay watershed. After 1958, Mr Herring worked for Alaska Lumber and Pulp, Canadian Forest Products, and then in 1985 he began work as a consultant out of Vancouver.

Mr Herring’s collection will be a wonderful source for future researchers. It includes a large library of maps, correspondence, reports, and a fantastically broad range of visual records. These are glass lantern slides, more conventional 35mm slides, negatives, and movies of various film formats all of which depict forest activities such as logging operations, mills and hunting scenes.

Sarah Romkey of UBC Special Collections was very happy to take possession of this material. Recall that we featured an entry by Sarah here previously, on UBC’s growing collection of forest-related material. Our thanks also to Stan Chester of the Forest History Association of BC for his assistance.

Please do get in touch if you know of any Canadian forest history related material in need of archival protection. Our brochures are online here: http://www.foresthistory.org/research/Canadian_archives_brochure.pdf

and the French version is here: http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/Canadian_archives_Fr.pdf

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David Brownstein

David Brownstein is the Principal of Klahanie Research Ltd (www.klahanieresearch.ca). He is also a longstanding UBC sessional instructor, and the continuing co-ordinator of NiCHE's "The Canadian Forest-History Preservation Project" (still facilitating archival donations after 11 years).

Latest posts by David Brownstein (see all)

• What is the History of Logging Protests in British Columbia? Part Two - January 14, 2022
• What is the History of Logging Protests in British Columbia? - December 22, 2021
• Archival Donation: Western Forest Products - July 26, 2016
• In Celebration of International Day of Forests: A Forest History Archival Donation Guide - March 21, 2015
• The Cloud Will Not Remember Everything Forever: Some Thoughts Prompted by Another Forest History Archival Donation - October 6, 2014
• History mysteries at the Association of BC Forest Professionals Meeting - August 11, 2014
• June is Forest History Month: Special issue of the Forestry Chronicle. - June 6, 2014
• Archival donation: the Dr Hubert William Ferdinand Bunce fonds. - May 26, 2014
• Adventures along the archival commodity chain: the Truck Loggers Convention. - May 2, 2014
• A rare event: forest history on the sports pages. - March 30, 2014