On December 10th, 2003, VHS member Frances Woodward retired as Map Librarian in the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the UBC library. Frances’ knowledge of and passion for the value of Fire Insurance Maps (FIMs), as well as other historical maps, has guided many local historical research projects.

Donna Jean MacKinnon, who is past president of the Vancouver Historical Society and is also passionate about Fire Insurance Maps, interviewed Frances Woodward in November 2003.

DJM: Can you recap your career as a map librarian?

FW: I worked for 5 years in the Provincial Archives of British Columbia looking after the map collection, and providing reference service, especially in the field of geography.

I then moved to Special Collections at UBC Library as a reference librarian, in charge of the historical map collection. The map collection had begun to really develop under the guidance of Dr. Coolie Verner and Dr. Bert Farley.  

In 1964 Basil Stuart-Stubbs and Dr. John Howes of the Asian Studies Department had acquired a large collection of Japanese maps of the Tokugawa Era (1600-1868). This collection remained in the University Librarian's office until Basil became director of the School of Library and Information Studies.

I have been at UBC for a long time now, over 37 years. I have seen a lot of changes, including the growth of the University Archives, and the separation of the division into two separate units: Rare Books and Special Collections, and the University Archives. We still share space and staff to some extent.

DJM: How and why did you become interested in FIMs?

FW: I first encountered fire insurance plans when I was working in the Provincial Archives. One of the real estate or insurance agents deposited a couple of large heavy volumes. At the time, agents generally kept these large atlases in very heavy covers, like super oversize ledgers, with post fasteners so that individual sheets could be replaced when needed. Maps have always fascinated me, and the detail on these plans was remarkable. However, I had a lot to do, the binders were very heavy, and I didn't know much about them.

When I moved to UBC, we periodically received old fire insurance plans, mostly removed from the binders. That is when I began to see the value and learned more about them. Since then, I have been hooked.

I just wish more people would use them in their research. They are heavily used for environmental assessment, but they have so much more potential. If we had had the plan of Barkerville when the government was planning its restoration, for example, how much easier it would have been! There is so much history, geography, urban planning, architecture, etc., to be found in these plans.

As far as I can make out, cannery (fire insurance) plans for the BC coast are unique. There is nothing similar for American canneries. Some may be included in the plans for an adjacent urban area, such as the mills and canneries in other parts of BC. I believe there is a series of plans for cotton or tobacco warehouses in the southeastern states, but I haven't seen any of them.

DJM: Can you speak about other kinds of historical maps and your work with them?

FW: As I said, I have always been fascinated with maps. I can spend ages just pouring over a map, looking at the place names and other features.

Shortly after I came to UBC, the map librarian received an invitation to attend a meeting at the National Archives in Ottawa. This was 1967. She asked if I would be interested in going too. Since I had already arranged to go to Montreal for Expo I took a few days more days and went to the meeting in Ottawa. That was the beginning of the Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives. I have been active in ACMLA ever since.

Some years later Dr. Richard Ruggles hosted a meeting at Queen's University on the state of the history of cartography in Canada. That prompted me to hold a meeting here of people in the Lower Mainland and Victoria who had some interest in maps and historical geography and cartography. That was the beginning of the Map Society of British Columbia. I have attended several meetings of the International Conference for the History of Cartography and was one of the founding members of the International Society for Curators of EarlyMaps.

Yes, I love old maps, and I have done some research and writing about them when I have had time. I have given some papers at the ACMLA and WAML conferences, a few of which were published.

DJM: What is the future of these and other historical maps?

FW: Map collections tend to be the unwanted stepchild in a library or archives. Many people are cartographically illiterate. Maps are often large, awkward to handle, take a lot of room, we don't understand them and we don't know what to do with them. Pass them on to someone else to take care of, or put them away someplace, and hope no one wants to see them.

Few archives do much with maps if they can avoid them, other than store them. If there are staff cutbacks, the map librarian or archivist is generally moved to some other area.

These days, with the growth of GIS, the map librarian is often part of a data library.

DJM: What are your plans for post-retirement?

FW: I would like to do some traveling, and there are a few projects I’d like to pursue in the field of history/geography/maps. I also plan to remain active in the Map Society of B.C.

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