chung collection

Hotel Vancouver
Did you know that there were actually three incarnations of the Hotel Vancouver? One of Canada’s grand railway hotels, Hotel Vancouver has a rich history beginning with its initial construction in 1888. This post uses images and publications from the Chung Collection to trace its history, from the first Hotel Vancouver to its present-day incarnation […]

Subjects in Our Collections: Canadian Studies
British Columbiana and Canadiana are two of our largest areas of collection development. Our collections hold items that explore a range of disciplines related to these topics, including history, business, sociology, literature, and more. For example: BC Historical Books: This collection contains almost 2,000 books about and/or published in British Columbia. Three bibliographies of British […]

Mah Jongg: A Community Game
You have probably already heard of Mah Jongg. Maybe you’ve grown up playing it or have family who play it. Maybe you’ve tried to play a video game version of it on your phone. Or maybe you’ve only ever heard the name. We are happy to have a Mah Jongg set in our Chung Collection, […]

Canadian Food Recipes
Canada is a multicultural country, and its culinary traditions reflect that. Many people often ask Canadians: what are typical Canadian dishes? I’ve asked that question myself a few times and usually heard “gravy” or “poutine.” Well after a bit of digging, we found the answer, and it is way more than just gravy! While browsing […]

Eight Business Lessons From the Canadian Pacific Railway
Lately, we’ve been highlighting some important lessons that can be learned in our collections, including the history of typography, how surgery was performed in the 16th century, and which artists are responsible for the art in the Chung Collection. But did you know that our collections also contain important business lessons? That’s right, business lessons […]

Objects of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Did you know that we have some of the items in our collections because of a lazy dishwasher? Several Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) items in the Chung Collection were bought by Dr. Chung from a scuba diver. The CPR had many diverse businesses, including cruises, and apparently some crew members were so tired of washing […]

How Are Collections Made?
While browsing through our digital collections, you might start wondering how all of these items originally came together. Every collection has its own unique story, and we’ve chosen to highlight two such stories in this week’s post. Maybe it will motivate you to start your own collection! Chung Collection The Chung Collection currently has […]

Chung Collection Menus: A Flavour Throwback
Restaurant and hotel menus are windows to the past. When looking at old menus, you can learn about what kinds of foods people used to prefer, what kinds of produce was available, what was considered to be an elaborate dish, and how much people used to pay for food. The Chung Collection contains hundreds of […]

Graphic art in the Chung Collection
If you take a look at the Canadian Pacific Railway Company posters in our Chung Collection, you’ll be amazed by all of the wonderful paintings depicting early and mid 20th-century travel in Canada. These promotional posters were created to attract tourists to the many trains, hotels, world cruises, Canadian tours, and airplanes owned by Canadian […]