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LILLIAN AGNES JONES SCHOLARSHIP
About The Scholarship
The 2025/26 Lillian Agnes Jones Scholarship is now open for applications, supporting research and studies on the history and culture of Western Canada.
As an arts institution and archives in Banff National Park, The Whyte fosters research on nationalism, nature preservation, art, colonialism, tourism, and resource extraction. This program supports artists, scholars, writers, and curators in exploring Banff’s complex histories, encouraging work that preserves its natural and cultural heritage. The Whyte welcomes applications from all Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
Applicants may request up to $25,000 in either the Academic or Creative Production stream. Proposals should outline how The Whyte’s Art and Heritage collections, Archives, and Special Collections Library will be utilized. Full application details are available at the link below.
Established through a 2001 bequest to the Whyte Museum from Lillian Agnes Jones (1909–2000), a cousin of co-founder Peter Whyte, the scholarship originally funded graduate students at the University of Calgary before transitioning in 2019 to an open-call scholarly residency. Jones, a University of Alberta and University of Washington State graduate, was a librarian for Cal Standard Oil in Calgary and a University Women’s Club member. The scholarship continues her legacy of supporting research on Western Canada’s history.
Scholarship Recipients
2024/25
Dr. Ben Bradley
Young People, the Great Outdoors, and the Culture of Nature in Banff, 1970-1985
How did Banff’s youth scene change following the abrupt collapse of its closely associated and highly controversial counterculture scene in 1971? During the 1970s and early 1980s, how did teenagers and young adults visiting or residing in Banff use (and sometimes abuse) the town’s public spaces, recreational venues, and nearby “wilderness” in an effort to escape the routines of everyday life and sometimes even to briefly “go wild”? These are the central questions Ben pursued with the Lillian Agnes Jones Scholarship. Final report and The Cairn article to be published in Spring 2025.
2024/25
Chris Chang-Yen Phillips
Environmental Advocacy and Media in 1970s Alberta
Chris' research project focuses on environmental advocacy and media in Alberta in the 1970s. That decade saw a rise in the number of Albertans campaigning for environmental issues, from opposition to freeways to campaigns against oil extraction in Indigenous territories. It was a unique time of grassroots hope, pushback from industry and government, and confrontation. Qi Chen and PearlAnn Reichwein have written that successful campaigning against a proposed Village Lake Louise development in 1972 marked a turning point in public input in Canadian national parks policy. Jonathan Clapperton and Liza Piper have observed that small activist groups throughout North America in the 1970s offered much more prominent roles for workers, women, Indigenous people, and other marginalized groups than larger environmental organizations. Albertan campaigners put their issues in front of the public through protests, forums, and the media. In this project, Chris uses Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies archival collections to research how Alberta-based civil society groups in the 1970s used media to debate and advocate for environmental issues. Final report and The Cairn article to be published in Spring 2025.
