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Lillian Agnes Jones Scholarship
In 2001, the Peter and Catharine Whyte Foundation/Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies received a bequest from the estate of Lillian Agnes Jones. Lillian Agnes Jones (1909 – 2000) was a cousin to Whyte Museum founder, Peter Whyte. Her mother, Elizabeth Jane, was Dave White’s sister. She and her husband Clifford Jones moved to Calgary in 1900. Their daughter, Lillian, was educated at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and University of Washington State, graduating in 1952 with a degree in Library Science. She was Head Librarian for Cal Standard Oil Company in Calgary, and was a member of the University Women’s Club.
The Lillian Agnes Jones Scholarship was established “for study and research related to the history of Western Canada.” Initially administered as a graduate student scholarship through the University of Calgary, it was realigned in 2019 to be administered through the Whyte Museum, with an open call for scholarly residency proposals across Canada.
2022/23 Scholarship Recipients:
Living in an Era of Adaptation: How Iconic Mountaineering Routes are Changing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains
"The spectacular landscape of the Canadian Rocky Mountains has lured climbers and mountain athletes from all over the world for many years, cultivating a rich history of mountaineering, including alpine climbing and more recently, ski mountaineering (Robinson, 2007). Characterized by steep faces, sharp ridge lines, vast glaciers, and deep wilderness, the Rockies, whose summits evade many and reward few, have become synonymous with pioneering ascents and exhilarating descents (Pullan, 2016). However, the rapid retreat of glaciers, diminishing alpine snowpack, and degrading permafrost (Hock et al., 2019) has altered the iconic and world-famous alpine routes of the Canadian Rockies."
Hanly's work will "explore the notion of ‘lasts’, including both last ascents and last descents, by systematically characterizing change in classic alpine routes throughout the Canadian Rocky Mountains."
Keara Lightning Long
Indigenous Ecology in the History of Environmental Management
"Indigenous management practices, such as the use of controlled burns in certain landscapes, are now being integrated into scientific understandings of the environment, but are often premised on the continuation of settler colonial governance over those landscapes and practices (Zahara 2020) ... .
An understanding of environmental history that engages with Indigenous peoples can instead illuminate Indigenous presence and governance, as shown in the role of ethnobiologists in several land claims cases (Armstrong and Brown 2019).
This research will explore this using a historical case study of environmental management in the Northern Plains. By analyzing the presences and absences of Indigenous ecologies in this history, I seek to understand how these presences/absences are taken up in environmental sciences today."
Amanda Foote
Dagugan Woakide Akide Hnegigan Echin Bathtabi (Studying Museums in a Good Way)
"My research works with Îethka people to understand the value of museums and archives from their perspectives. My intention is that this work has value for Indigenous communities as well as GLAM institutions... .
Museums and Indigenous communities have made significant accomplishments working together to explore and develop new museum practices and to adapt expertise in ways that best suit community interests (Lonetree 2012). This is especially evidenced in Alberta where museums have embarked on substantial engagement & reconciliation projects (Conaty 2015, Onciul 2017, Payne 2016)... .
As a white settler museum professional who happened to be living in the community of Mînîthnî I saw this firsthand with the work that the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies was doing, and also at my home institution, the Glenbow. As I became engaged in kinship and community networks in Mînîthnî (my husband is a member of the community there) I began to be approached with museums questions. I met many Îethka people who were interested in their artifacts and the ways museums kept them... .
After consultation with local Elders, I applied and was accepted with a project plan to explore the ways Îethka could think about their engagement in museums and archives by spending time in them, and by consulting with other communities working in similar ways."
Kate Hanly
Previous Scholarship Recipients:
2021/22
Mary Graham
Mary Graham completed her research entitled, The Enduring Magic of Banff in Alberta’s Film Industry, Post 1960 in March of 2022. Material researched by Graham during this fellowship will be released at a later date. Her first book, A Stunning Backdrop: Alberta in the Movies, 1917-1960 will be released in October 2022.
2020/21
Tyler Stewart
Tyler Stewart completed his research as a fellow early 2021.
Excerpt from Stewart's Final Report:
This research scholarship was originally focused on the idea of “listening to the museum,” which was intended to explore multiple research directions: understanding what sounds exist within the collection; understanding how the museum ‘speaks’ to its community; documenting the sounds produced by and around the museum; understanding the sonic landscape of the Banff area; and most importantly, engaging in critical dialogue around what the Whyte Museum could do to engage in more ethical relations through sound.
2019/20
Daniel R. Meister
Meister completed his fellowship early 2020. Meister's Final Report entitled, A ‘red tile in the Canadian mosaic’? Indigenous Peoples and J. M. Gibbon’s Cultural Pluralism, 1920s-1950s, was completed in early 2020.
The research completed through the fellowship helped him finish and publish, The Racial Mosaic: A Pre-History of Canadian Multiculturalism. In April of 2022, Meister presented a book talk about his recent publication. You can watch it here.
2020/21
Felix Mayer
Felix Mayer completed his research as a fellow early 2021.
Abstract from Mayer's Final Report:
Wilderness is a term that holds undeniable significance within Canadian culture and has become a celebrated aspect of its national identity. This research project, a year-long study of Banff National Park and the history
of its boundaries, is an examination of how federal park boundaries have acted as legal and spatial tools to regulate and control territory, rather than solely preserve landscapes or ecologies. The history of the park boundary is investigated through its interactions with industrial interests, cultural landmarks, and historical narratives, dissecting the capacities of maps and
boundaries to control intensely layered and complex territories. [. . .] Through an analysis of historical imagery and maps, as well as the production of a new series of mapping explorations that document the complex landscapes that the boundary of the park navigates, the dynamics of power, exclusion, demarcation, and control inherent to the defining of landscapes and boundaries are investigated.
2019/20
Stephanie Laine Hamilton
Hamilton completed her scholarship in early 2020.
Her research focused on Booze and Bars in the Bow Valley, which is forthcoming in 2023. Her research on this topic focuses on Rocky Mountain vernacular architecture and pub culture. The first book in this series was, Booze and Bars in the Crowsnest Pass.
Read her intriguing Final Report below!