About this website
This website features historical images of the hwuhwilmuhw (Hul’q’umi’num’ people). Some of these photographs may be familiar to viewers, having been published in books or used in other media, but others will not. Our project team has collected, digitized, and shared these images to re-frame them within hwulmuhw perspectives and bring the family and community stories behind the photographs to light. You’ll find that some of these images come with recordings. These are recordings of Elders and community members either describing the images or narrating stories related to them.
As part of this project, we aim to gather information from the community. If you have insights about the incomplete information, memories, or any comments about the images, please get in touch and share them with us directly (via email below), or leave comments at the bottom of each post.
What you can find
- Historical images gathered from various collections.
- Audio recordings and videos that were created in recent years through fieldwork.
- Information relating to each image, such as a title, descriptive caption, and themes. Whenever possible,dates, location, people, source, photographer’s name, etc. have been added.
Each separate dedicated image page has four main sections:
- Key information: includes categories such as title, description, date, location, source, people, etc.
- Elder’s knowledge: features an audio recording of a community member speaking about the image, as well as a transcription of the audio and the translation into English.
- Learn more: a thorough description of the image, including historical context and details. May also include related vocabulary, phrases, and additional images.
- Related images: links to other images in the collection.
Navigating the archive
We have organized the images to help users find what they are looking for. There are a few ways to browse the collection, which we will review individually.
1) Via the Table
To view the table, go to the “Browse the Image Collection” page from the main menu. The table on this page is a useful tool to view images along with their categories. The table includes categories such as Name, Image, Date, Location, Audio, and Elder.
Note for 📱users: Please rotate your phone horizontally for better viewing of the table.
Here’s a visual guide for the table:
Important points to remember about this table are:
- The names in the first column are buttons and clicking on them will open the post for that picture in a new browser tab. On this page you can learn more about the image and listen to the audio recordings (where applicable).
- Click on an image in the table to get a larger view. This opens a gallery view of all the images.
- By default, the table shows 25 rows/images. Change how many rows the table can have via the drop down on top of the table (“show ___ entries”). Also, to see more images, you have to go to the next page, which is shown at the bottom of the table.
- The columns in the table can be sorted alphabetically or numerically by clicking/tapping on the column header. For example, to see the most recent images first, tap on the header of the column “Date”.
- Use the search box at the top of the table to display images related to a specific search term. For example, to view images related to Somenos, enter Somenos into the search box and then only the rows related to that place will be displayed in the table.
2) Via the Index
The table above has 5 categories. If you want to see all the categories and explore their subcategories, you can go to the “Browse the full index” page, where each category has its subcategories listed under it and the number of posts in that subcategory. If you click on subcategories, a new tab will open, and you’ll see a list of all posts.
Here’s a visual guide for the index page:
3) Via the home page
The main search bar on the Home page is located on the right sidebar (on a phone, scroll down to see it). Search for a single word or any words and phrases that you want! It could be a location, event, words in Hul’q’umi’num’, etc. If this word or phrase is inside a post, you’ll see the post(s) listed in the search results. If there’s no match for the phrase you are searching for, you’d see a blank page.
The sidebar on the home page also lists themes related to the images. Select a theme to view all the images related to that theme.
Tips for searching effectively
Here are some tips for searching for the exact content and pictures you need.
- If you want to find an exact phrase, use double quotes so the search results include the exact sequence of words you’ve specified. For example, searching for “cowichan bay” in quotes will exclude results where the words are not in the exact order.
- Add the “category:…” parameters to narrow down your search to specific posts. For example, “category:buildings” will retrieve results only from the “buildings” category.
- Operators such as AND, OR, and NOT can be used to combine or exclude specific terms in your search. For example, searching for “fishing or weir” will return results that include both terms, while “fishing NOT victoria” will exclude results containing the term “victoria”.
Practical Examples
Example 1: (This search will return results related to Weir and Canoe, but exclude those mentioning Duncan)
Weir AND Canoe NOT Duncan
Example 2: (This search will return results related to sweater, but exclude those not in the people category of themes)
“Sweater” category:people
Saving and Citing
To cite this website, use the following:
Hul’q’umi’num’ Language & Culture Society. (Date Accessed). [Title of page]. Images of the Hul’q’umi’num’ World. https://images.hwulmuhwqun.caContact and Reporting issues
Some of the information on this site is subject to verification. We value your input and suggestions. Write to us at: hlcsprojectsmanager @ gmail [dot] com
If you are visiting a place, please take a photo and share it with us.
Let us know if you’re experiencing technical issues.
Or contact us through this form, and we’ll get back to you shortly.