Fonds BF 17 - Dick and Ada Bird fonds

Dick Bird (portrait) Cameraman filming young women marching on the beach A woman holds a handful of hailstones Regina Roughriders football team at play R_B13549_1.jpg R_B13549_2.jpg R_A27626_1.jpg R_A27628_1.jpg R_A27628_6.jpg

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Dick and Ada Bird fonds

General material designation

  • Textual record
  • Graphic material
  • Sound recording
  • Object
  • Moving images

Parallel title

Description type

Private

Title statements of responsibility

Title notes

Level of description

Fonds

Reference code

BF 17

Edition area

Edition statement

Edition statement of responsibility

Class of material specific details area

Statement of scale (cartographic)

Statement of projection (cartographic)

Statement of coordinates (cartographic)

Statement of scale (architectural)

Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • [191-?]-1995 (Accumulation)
  • 1907-1981, 1984, 1992, 1995 (predominant: 1920-1979) (Creation)
    Creator
    Bird, Dick and Ada, 1892-2003

Physical description area

Physical description

1.220m of textual records
9478 photographs
182 film reels (ca. 44 hr. 9 min.)
11 videocassettes (53 min. 28 sec.)
3 filmstrips
1 audio cassette (26 min.)
1 object

Publisher's series area

Title proper of publisher's series

Parallel titles of publisher's series

Other title information of publisher's series

Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series

Numbering within publisher's series

Note on publisher's series

Archival description area

Name of creator

(1892-2003)

Biographical history

William Henry Richard "Dick" Bird was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England on August 16, 1892. From an early age he developed a keen interest in cinema and still photography. His first cinema film experience occurred in 1905 watching Boer Was footage at the theatre in Leamington. Emigrating at the age of fourteen, Bird came to Vermont to live with an uncle in c.1907. His family later followed, settling in Fort William, Ontario.

Starting his career in Chicago, Illinois, Bird travelled extensively, gaining experience as a freelance cinematographer covering events for various organizations and film companies in the United States, China, Japan, Korea, South America, Mexico, and Canada, shooting newsreels, animated cartoons, travelogues and commercial motion pictures. In 1919, while living in Toronto, Bird was elected first president of the Canadian Professional and Press Photographers Association. Also in 1919, Bird played an instrumental role organizing Local 636 of the Cinematographers and Motion Picture Craftsmen, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union.

In 1921 Dick Bird moved with his family to Regina, Saskatchewan to make documentary, educational and industrial films for the Saskatchewan government. He continued to shoot newsreels for Pathescope. He also founded Bird Films Ltd., a photographic shop, in Regina in 1928. During this time his photography often mirrored his achievements in filmmaking. This included flights of the RAF Forestry Air Fire Patrol in northern Saskatchewan, the opening of the Albert Memorial Bridge in Regina in 1930 and the Regina Riot of 1935. He also filmed the opening broadcast of Saskatchewan's first radio station CKCK in 1922, the first drilling for oil and gas in the province, as well as the visits of various dignitaries, including Edward, Prince of Wales, on his 1919 Canadian tour. In 1922 Bird founded the Canadian Cinema Arts Society. He continued to travel through Europe in the 1930s filming newsreels of the Spanish Civil War and Hitler Youth rallies.

By the 1930's, however, the primary focus of Bird's career had shifted to nature photography and conservation. Elected president of the Regina Natural History Society, he actively promoted public interest in wildlife. In 1937 he began a weekly program on CKCK Radio "Camera Trails". He published The Camera Trailer, a newsletter illustrated with his own photographs for distribution to his radio audience. He also started a nature club for children and encouraged nature field trips throughout rural Saskatchewan. Bird also produced commercial films for the Boy Scouts of Canada and the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.

Soon after coming to work in Canada following the end of the First World War, Dick Bird had met and married Pansy Myrtle Fern Nix of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Actively supporting her husband's career, Pansy Bird managed and operated Bird Films Ltd. while Dick was travelling on film assignments. Dick and Pansy Bird had three children Gordon, Jeanne (Kaad) and Yvonne (Ellis). Their son died as a child and Pansy died in Mexico in 1937.

Ada Gertrude Bovee was born near Avonlea, Saskatchewan on December 21, 1917 to James and Gertrude (Nelson) Bovee. She was the youngest of six children. The Bovees came to homestead in the Avonlea area from Wisconsin in 1906. Trained in business and an amateur ornithologist, Ada also was active in the local Avonlea Sunday School, Mission Band, choirs and the I.O.D.E. She met Dick Bird in the early 1940s when he was invited to show films to her Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT) church group. Soon after Ada began working for Bird Films photographing birds, animals and flowers. During the Second World War Ada and Dick showed films and slides in many rural towns and villages in the province in support of the "Milk for Britain" campaign.

In December 1946 Dick and Ada Bird were married, marking a long personal and business partnership as cinematographers travelling throughout Canada, the United States and the world producing nature films and conducting winter lecture tours. From 1952 to 1955 they shot film footage for Walt Disney Production's True Life Adventure series. Their lecture audience included Harvard, the National Geographic Society, and the Smithsonian Institute. The Audubon Society sponsored many of their tours. The Birds' still photography taken during the period of the 1940's and 1950's is dominated by wildlife, flora, and natural scenery.

In 1960 Dick and Ada Bird retired from eight years of lecture tours to their property at Buena Vista near Regina Beach, which had been in the Bird family since the early 1940s. They continued to show films in Regina public schools to encourage awareness of conservation among school children, and also were guest speakers at various Canadian Clubs in Eastern Canada. In the 1970s Dick began work on his memoirs and on a history of photography, although ill health prevented the completion of this project. Ada worked from 1969 to 1983 with Muir Barber Ltd. in the hardware and gift business. After Dick's death in 1986, Ada moved into Regina. She continued to be active in many senior and church groups.

Throughout his life, Dick Bird received many honours. He was an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. In 1950 he was the second Canadian, after Yousuf Karsh, to become a Fellow of the Photographic Society of America. In that year he also became the first life member of the Saskatchewan Natural History Society. In May 1976 Bird received an honourary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Regina. He was also honoured as Saskatchewan's Pioneer Cinematographer at the International Film Festival in Yorkton in 1979.

Bird Films Ltd. was, since its early years, very much a family business, operated by Dick and Pansy Bird, their daughters, and later their daughters' husbands. The business sold cameras, film and accessories and also had a studio and film lab. Dick Bird remained active in Bird Films into the 1960s. Bird Films continues (2005) to operate as a photography business with a third generation of family management.

Dick Bird died on September 27, 1986. Ada Bird died on October 3, 2003 in Regina.

Custodial history

Ownership of certain films, photographs and artifacts transferred by donor to stepdaughter, Yvonne Ellis and via legal agreement to the Saskatchewan Archives in 1992.
In 1992, twelve (12) cans of nitrate films were sent to the National Archives (now known as Library and Archives Canada) for storage. In February 1999, VHS and BetaCam SP videocassette transfers were returned to the Saskatchewan Archives Board.

Scope and content

This fonds consists of records created, accumulated and used by Dick and Ada Bird of Regina, Saskatchewan during the course of their careers in the cinematography field, their travels worldwide and their lecture tours throughout Canada and the United States. Their personal family life is also documented. The period of the record relates predominantly to the 1920s through 1970s.

Included in the fonds are 16 mm silent film reels; photographs; journals, diaries and memo books; notes; scripts; manuscripts, scrapbooks and extensive correspondence. Also contained in the textual records are draft chapters and research notes for Dick Bird's incomplete autobiographical manuscript, 'Sixteen Frames, Hand-Cranked and Silent' written in the 1970s.

The types of film include dramatic presentations, instructional and historical documentaries, comedic feature films, compilations of footage and clips, newsreels, interviews, shorts, travelogues, animated cartoons, home movies and nature films. The film reels document travels in China, Bermuda, British Guiana, Europe, New Zealand, Florida, California, Arizona and Texas; historical subjects such as the North-West Mounted Police, aviation, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, and the Second World War; and various news events. Film of wildlife and travels in Newfoundland, Manitoba and Alberta is represented in the fonds, as well as travel throughout Saskatchewan (in particular Regina, Prince Albert, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, Fort Qu'Appelle and Lac La Ronge and the Birds' cottage at Buena Vista on Last Mountain Lake). Agricultural scenes, wildlife, birds, nature and conservation are the predominant subjects of the films.

Photographic material includes prints, copy and glass negatives, transparencies, slides and filmstrips. The photographs include documentation of the Birds' foreign, Canadian and Saskatchewan travel producing nature films and conducting lecture tours. As well, provincial politicians, local events, visiting dignitaries, aviation, nature, industry, agricultural scenes and Regina subjects are depicted substantially in the fonds.

Series and subject assignment were applied to certain parts of the fonds in 2000 by the archivist describing the textual records, under the following headings: Film; 'Camera Trails' Radio Series; Lecture Tour Series; 'Sixteen Frames, Hand-Cranked and Silent,' Dick Bird's Autobiography; Scripts; Correspondence; Research; Trips; Clubs and Organizations; Personal Files; Photos and Films; Miscellaneous; Diaries; Memo Books; Notebooks; and Scrapbooks.

Photographs listed in 1992 were described under the following categories: Dick and Ada Bird; Natural History - Saskatchewan; Natural History - Canada; Foreign Excursions; Regina; General; and Filmstrips.

The fonds includes a sound recording of an interview with Fred Bradshaw of Vancouver, British Columbia regarding his discovery, on may 28, 1922, of the first Whooping Crane nest found in west central Saskatchewan. The interview was conducted by Dick Bird in 1955 and is 26 minutes long.

No series assignment was applied to the film records described in the 1990s, or to the photographic records described in 2003.

This fonds is missing additional films, diaries and correspondence that were destroyed in a 1985 fire at the Bird residence.

Notes area

Physical condition

Certain records are in good physical condition.

Many photographs and film have soot staining, melted emulsion and shrinkage from the 1985 fire at the Bird residence. Some scrapbooks and diaries are also extremely fragile with brittle pages due to fire damage.

Immediate source of acquisition

Ada Bird donated these records to the Regina office, Saskatchewan Archives in 3 accessions between 1991 and 1999: R91-317 (November 28, 1991); R94-417 (October 20, 1994); and R99-253 (August 4, 1999).

Arrangement

Textual records arranged alphabetically by subject and type of record by the arranging archivist in 2000. The factors determining arrangement of the records in this fonds have not been documented during the description process.
Photographs described in 1992 arranged by subject.

Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Location of originals

Availability of other formats

Some film reels also available on videocassette. VT R-12866 to VT R-12871.

Some film reels also available on DVD. DVD R-12873 to DVD R-12877.

Videocassette transfers of nitrate film - VHS. VT R-9703.1 to VT R-9703.9, VT R-9703.11; VT R-9705.

Videocassette transfers of nitrate film - Beta Cam SP. VT R-9704.1 to VT R-9704.9, VT R-9704.11; VT R-9706.

Some electronic copies of photographs are available in Archival Digital Storage.

Restrictions on access

Records are open for research use.

Certain original films are not available for use; research copies on videocassette and DVD have been created for some records.
Please consult reference archivist for access to artifacts.

Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication

Use, publication and/or reproduction of records may be subject to terms and conditions of the Copyright Act and/ or a donor agreement.

Finding aids

SAFA 27 (old guides GR 635 and R-PG 11) consists of a fonds description, file listings of textual records and item listings of photographs, sound recordings and moving images. The electronic finding aid consists of item level database for certain photographs, films, and videotapes.

Uploaded finding aid

Associated materials

Associated material: Other records of Dick Bird are held by Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Richard Bird fonds (CAIN No. 188205). These records include news clips, short documentaries, unedited films and sound recordings. Saskatchewan Archives Board holds videotape copies of certain films from LAC material.
Library and Archives Canada holds originals of nitrate film transferred from the Saskatchewan Archives Board's Bird material in December 1992.
Related material: Column on Dick Bird can be found in the Ken Liddell fonds (Collection R-803.1, File I.3), Saskatchewan Archives Board, Regina office.
Newspaper clippings on Dick Bird can be round in collection R-E1160, SAB, Regina office.
Related records can be found in the moving image holdings of the SAB, Regina office: FILM R-214; FILM R-327 (VT R-177.3); FILM R-469 to FILM R-470; FILM R-471(1) to (8); FILM R-485 (VT R-182); FILM R-1240 (VT R-2526.4); FILM R-2380 (VT R-6952); FILM R-3046; FILM R-3157; VT R-1286.1 through VT R-1286.7; VT R-4999.2; and VT R-9184.2 and VT R-9184.3.

Related materials

Accruals

No further accruals are expected.

General note

Duration for film reels provided in physical description is for known length of films. Running time is not available for all films.

Conservation

Portions of the textual records which acquired extensive smoke and fire damage have been photocopied and substituted in place of the original record in the files.
Twelve cans of nitrate films were sent to thae National Archives (now Library and Archives Canada) for storage in 1992. Videocassette transfers of these records were received by the Saskatchewan Archives in February 1999.
Certain films have extreme shrinkage and are not available for viewing.

Alpha-numeric designations

Textual records: old guide GR 635 (R-1707)

R-PG 11 (Photographs: R-A27347 to R-A27696; R-A28570; R-B12918 to R-B12985)
Film Strips: FILM R-30 to R-32

Photographs: R-A28496 to R-A28569; R-A28571 to R-A28592; R-A30626 to R-A30672; R-B13523; R-B13533 to R-B13562; R-C10336 to R-C12779

Film reels: FILM R-2415 to FILM R-2420 (VT R-12866 and DVD R-12873); FILM R-2421 (VT R-12867 and DVD R-12874); FILM R-2422; FILM R-2425; FILM R-2426 (VT R-12868 and DVD R-12875) to FILM R-2434 (VT R-12869 and DVD R-12876); FILM R-2435 to FILM R-2479; FILM R-2481 to FILM R-2509; FILM R-2511 to FILM R-2526; FILM R-2528 to FILM R-2559 (VT R-9676); FILM R-2560 to FILM R-2571; FILM R-2572.1 to FILM R-2572.4; FILM R-2573 to FILM R-2574; FILM R-4023 to FILM R-4033 (VT R-12870);
FILM R-2572.1 to FILM R-2572.4; FILM R-2573 to FILM R-2574; FILM R-4023 to FILM R-4033 (VT R-12870); FILM R-4034 to FILM R-4036; FILM R-4040 to FILM R-4041; FILM R-4044 to FILM R-4049 (VT R-12871 and DVD R-12877); FILM R-4050 TO FILM R-4052

Audio Tape: R-14870

Alternative identifier(s)

Original ID

BF 17

Standard number area

Standard number

Access points

Subject access points

Place access points

Name access points

Genre access points

Control area

Description record identifier

BF 17

Institution identifier

Rules or conventions

Saskatchewan Archives. Archival Description Manual 2004.

Status

Final

Level of detail

Language of description

  • English

Script of description

  • Latin

Sources

Contents of fonds.

Donor, agreement and photograph internal SAB files.

Old guides GR 635 and RPG 11.

Accession area

Related subjects

Related people and organizations

Related places

Related genres