Agassiz-Harrison Museum partners with local historian to transcribe handwritten historical files

AGASSIZ — The Agassiz-Harrison Museum’s latest partnership is bringing the area’s past online into the 21st century with two new projects.

“BC History Diary” compiles free-to-access articles born from local historian Jodie Laughlin’s work transcribing handwritten historical documents from across B.C. and researching their context.

This work includes “The Hazeley Letter Series”, which explores 100 letters written by four siblings who travelled from England to Agassiz in 1896 and 1897, painting word pictures of life in the region through dances, train crashes, gold mines and more. 

The letters were returned to Agassiz in 2025.

“The William McRae” series then follows William Gordon McRae as he wrote home after leaving to fight in the Great War.

“The collection includes both letters he wrote home and photographs taken by William himself,” said the Museum. “Descendants of William still reside in Agassiz, British Columbia and every Remembrance Day, a family member lays a wreath at the cenotaph in his honor.”

His letters are set to be featured in the Agassiz-Harrison Museum’s remembrance exhibit titled “We Were There: Soldiers of the Agassiz-Harrison Valley” this fall.