Lantern Slides
Please note our galleries will be closed from Oct. 20-29. The bookstore, archives, and heritage home tours will remain open for regular hours.
Open Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
LILLIAN AGNES JONES SCHOLARSHIP
About The Scholarship
The 2025/26 Lillian Agnes Jones Scholarship supports research and studies on the history and culture of Western Canada.
Based in Banff National Park, The Whyte is uniquely positioned to interrogate and explore the overlapping histories of nationalism, nature preservation, art, colonialism, tourism, and resource extraction in the region, challenging dominant narratives and foregrounding diverse perspectives.
Applicants may request up to $25,000 in either the Academic or Creative Production stream. Proposals should outline how The Whyte’s Art and Heritage collections, Archives, and Special Collections Library will be utilized. Full application details are available at the link below.
Established through a 2001 bequest to the Whyte Museum from Lillian Agnes Jones (1909–2000), a cousin of co-founder Peter Whyte, the scholarship originally funded graduate students at the University of Calgary before transitioning in 2019 to an open-call scholarly residency. Jones, a University of Alberta and University of Washington State graduate, was a librarian for Cal Standard Oil in Calgary and a University Women’s Club member. The scholarship continues her legacy of supporting research on Western Canada’s history.
Scholarship Recipients
2025/26
Stephanie Weber
Stephanie Weber’s research will explore the intersection of craft art, gender history, and the natural landscape in Western Canada. Stephanie plans to examine original fine craft pieces by various women artists within The Whyte’s art and heritage collections, as well as archival materials that provide important context to their work. Stephanie’s project will challenge the common separation between “craft” and “fine art”, while highlighting the underrepresented voices of these artists and their broader impact on Canada’s cultural history.
2025/26
Dr. Rosanna Carver
Dr. Rosanna Carver’s research will examine the “subterranean” of the Canadian Rockies, an often-overlooked part of the region which is best known for its vertical features. Through a combination of archival research and first-person interviews with archaeologists, hydrologists, Indigenous knowledge keepers and other experts, Rosanna will explore the political, cultural, material, and social dimensions of the subterranean and challenge the colonial perspective that it has primarily served as a space for resource extraction and exploration.
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2025/26
Giona Smalleyes
Giona Smalleyes will build on her past research by consulting with Elders and other knowledge keepers from the Îyârhe Nakoda community to harvest sweetgrass and create a rope medallion following traditional cultural practices. Giona plans to curate an exhibit featuring the rope medallion which will be displayed in Mînî Thnî. Through this work, she hopes to encourage other members of the Îyârhe Nakoda community to engage with materials held at The Whyte, and to explore how museum staff and Indigenous community members can work together to build a stronger sense of belonging and connection in museum spaces.
2025/26
Kari Woo
Kari Woo’s research will address crucial gaps within the traditional narrative of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s construction by focusing on the role of Chinese migrant labourers, as well as the many Chinese community members who otherwise contributed to Banff’s development. Kari will use a combination of materials from The Whyte’s archival and heritage collections, as well as first-person interviews, to piece together an engaging visual and written narrative that may be adapted for use in future exhibits.
2024/25
Dr. Ben Bradley
Young People, the Great Outdoors, and the Culture of Nature in Banff, 1970-1985
How did Banff’s youth scene change following the abrupt collapse of its closely associated and highly controversial counterculture scene in 1971? During the 1970s and early 1980s, how did teenagers and young adults visiting or residing in Banff use (and sometimes abuse) the town’s public spaces, recreational venues, and nearby “wilderness” in an effort to escape the routines of everyday life and sometimes even to briefly “go wild”? These are the central questions Ben pursued with the Lillian Agnes Jones Scholarship. Final report and The Cairn article to be published in Spring 2025.
2024/25
Chris Chang-Yen Phillips
Environmental Advocacy and Media in 1970s Alberta
Chris' research project focuses on environmental advocacy and media in Alberta in the 1970s. That decade saw a rise in the number of Albertans campaigning for environmental issues, from opposition to freeways to campaigns against oil extraction in Indigenous territories. It was a unique time of grassroots hope, pushback from industry and government, and confrontation. Qi Chen and PearlAnn Reichwein have written that successful campaigning against a proposed Village Lake Louise development in 1972 marked a turning point in public input in Canadian national parks policy. Jonathan Clapperton and Liza Piper have observed that small activist groups throughout North America in the 1970s offered much more prominent roles for workers, women, Indigenous people, and other marginalized groups than larger environmental organizations. Albertan campaigners put their issues in front of the public through protests, forums, and the media. In this project, Chris uses Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies archival collections to research how Alberta-based civil society groups in the 1970s used media to debate and advocate for environmental issues. Final report and The Cairn article to be published in Spring 2025.
