We are a non-profit organization focused on promoting, preserving, and being a strong, active resource for all things of heritage value on Sea Island in Richmond, British Columbia. Join us to learn about the history of Sea Island and its residents, past and present.
Newsletter
The Sea Island Heritage Society is a group of volunteers who live or lived on Sea Island in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada and care about its heritage and history.
In 1995, through a chance meeting after one of the Cora Brown reunions, a few volunteers started gathering information, photographs and anything relating to Sea Island. Cora Brown was one of the subdivisions expropriated to make room for the expansion of the Vancouver International Airport. In 2001, the Sea Island Heritage Society became a non-profit, registered, charitable organization.
The Society works hard to collectively promote, preserve, and be a strong, active resource for all things of heritage value on Sea Island including documents, images, artefacts, sites and people’s memories (volunteer research, accepting tangible and intangible donated items). They inspire people to be thoughtful stewards of their Sea Island heritage (contacting us to problem solve, connecting – social events, conversing – Coffee Chats, celebrating – reunions, collecting their stories), and they publish heritage information about Sea Island’s past for present and future generations (website, newsletters).
The Society has thousands of indexed items in its Collection from research, hundreds of donated photos, and many physical artefacts, more than 100 family trees of pioneers and former residents using Ancestry.ca researched by the Society’s volunteers with expertise in genealogy. The Society continually collects information about family history and life stories of those who live or lived on Sea Island – indigenous peoples, pioneers, communities – farmers, cannery workers, Boeing plant workers, veterans and business entrepreneurs. We also have a large collection of the war efforts during WWII, including the workers at the Boeing Plant and the military bases and aircraft of the RCAF, Army and Navy on Sea Island, as well as veterans’ stories about WWII experiences and choosing Sea Island as a place to raise their families.