Daniel Francis (born 19 April 1947) is a Canadian historian and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

. He has published thirty books, chiefly about Canadian, British Columbian and Vancouver history, on a broad range of subjects, from the

Canadian fur trade The North American fur trade is the commercial trade in furs in North America. Various Indigenous peoples of the Americas traded furs with other tribes during the pre-Columbian era. Europeans started their participation in the North American fu ...

and

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

to the

history of whaling This article discusses the history of whaling from prehistoric times up to the commencement of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. Whaling has been an important subsistence and economic activity ...

, transportation and

Indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. In 2017 he received the Governor General's History Award for Popular Media: the

Pierre Berton Award Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

, called Canada's top honour in the field of history and heritage. In 2014 the City of Vancouver awarded him the Mayor's Arts Award for Literary Arts. In 2010 Francis received an award of merit from the Vancouver Historical Society for his contributions to the history of the city and the province. His biography of

L. D. Taylor Louis Denison Taylor (July 22, 1857 – June 4, 1946) was elected the 14th mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia. He was elected eight times between 1910 and 1934, serving a total of 11 years. Biography Born in Michigan, Taylor lived in Chicago b ...

, an early mayor of

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, won the 2004 City of Vancouver Book Award. His book on the history of

killer whale The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pa ...

s on the Pacific Coast, ''Operation Orca (Harbour)'', written with marine biologist Gil Hewlett, won the Foreword Magazine prize for best nature book of 2007. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia (Harbour 2000), which he edited and wrote the majority of, has been called “the most essential book for and about B.C.” In 2001 it won two awards at the annual British Columbia Book Prizes.

Education and career

Francis was born in

in 1947 and educated at Lord Byng High School. After graduating with a BA from the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

in 1969, he became a newspaper reporter at the Medicine Hat New in

Medicine Hat Medicine Hat is a city in Southern Alberta, southeast Alberta, Canada. It is located along the South Saskatchewan River. It is approximately east of Lethbridge and southeast of Calgary. This city and the adjacent Town of Redcliff, Alberta, ...

, AB and the

Ottawa Journal The ''Ottawa Journal'' was a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, from 1885 to 1980. It was founded in 1885 by A. Woodburn as the ''Ottawa Evening Journal''. Its first editor was John Wesley Dafoe who came from the ...

in Ottawa, ON. He obtained a master's degree from the Institute of Canadian Studies at Ottawa's

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning World ...

in 1975 and began a career as a freelance historical researcher and writer. In 1984 he moved to Montreal to become editor of Horizon Canada, a bilingual, weekly magazine of Canadian history. When that project concluded in 1987 he returned with his family to the West Coast where he has lived ever since. For several years he contributed a regular column on books to the literary quarterly

Geist ''Geist'' () is a German noun with a significant degree of importance in German philosophy. Its semantic field corresponds to English ghost, spirit, mind, intellect. Some English translators resort to using "spirit/mind" or "spirit (mind)" to he ...

. He continues to serve as editor of the online Encyclopedia of British Columbia. In 2016 he wrote Where Mountains Meet the Sea: An Illustrated History of the District of North Vancouver (Harbour), which was published to commemorate the district's 125th anniversary. His ''Becoming Vancouver: A History'' (2021), is the first comprehensive history of Vancouver published in fifty years. It was short-listed for both the Basil Stuart-Stubbs Book Prize for outstanding scholarly book on British Columbia, and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature.

References

External links

Official site

Publisher's author site
1947 births Living people 20th-century Canadian historians Historians of British Columbia Canadian magazine journalists Writers from British Columbia University of British Columbia alumni Carleton University alumni 21st-century Canadian historians {{Canada-writer-stub