See RG 6 Brandon University fonds, Series 7 Faculties and Schools, Sub-series 7.1 Faculty of Arts, Sub sub series 7.1.1 Dean of Arts for biographical information for Michael Blanar.
Custodial History
Collection was in the possession of Dr. Michael Blanar until he donated the records to the S.J. McKee Archives in May 2002.
Scope and Content
Collection consists of textual records and five microfilm reels related to Dr. Blanar’s post-graduate research. It is assumed that the records were collected during the course of Blanar’s research for his dissertation entitled “Early British Travellers in French Canada (1960).”
Textual records include three Dominion of Canada notebooks containing handwritten Saulteaux verbs, and animate nouns. Included is a dark red booklet titled “Ojibwe.” The book contains Ojibwa translations of English words. The book comes from St. Peter Clavers Industrial School in Spanish, Ontario, and may have acted as an instructional book as it also contains French and English. Collection also contains a transcript of an Ojibwa dictionary and three file folders titled “Manuscripts,’ “John Long Research,” and “Maps” which contain additional research material. Contents of “Manuscript” folder are original typed manuscripts. “John Long” and “Maps” file folders contain copies of materials held at Library and Archives Canada, as well as hand drawn documents and hand written documents detailing contents of folders.
In addition to the textual records there are five microfilm reels. Three microfilm cases are labeled “The British Reference Division,” one case labeled “Public Archives Canada, central microfilm operations,” and the last case is from an unidentified source labeled “Longs voyages and travels”. Four of the five microfilm cases are also numbered. The British Reference Division microfilm case numbered “1346 i 43” contains a copy of a book titled “The Cacique of Ontario.” British Reference Division microfilm case numbered “104706640” contains a copy of a book titled “The Four Kings of Canada.” British Reference Division microfilm case numbered “9073279” contains a copy of a book titled “The Indians.” The Public Archives Canada microfilm case numbered “c-3006” contains copies of original documents in French and English. Documents include letters, diary pages, maps, and business ledgers. Microfilm case labeled “Longs voyages and travels” contains a copy of a book written by John Long titled “Voyages and Travels of Indian Interpreter and Trader.”
Notes
Description by Aaron McKay (October 2013). The Ojibwa language dictionary and notebook make references to Fredric Baraga (1797-1868), a missionary priest from Slovenia who recorded the Lake Superior Ojibwa language dialect. Baraga’s findings were published into an Ojibwa language dictionary.
In addition to working as a journalist, editor, and publisher, Fred McGuinness worked as a freelance writer or “wordsmith” as he identified himself on his business cards. Throughout his career, McGuinness would write/publish about a topic in a variety of forums and would continually re-work manuscripts. The last piece of freelance writing the S.J. McKee Archives appears to have is a un-proofed draft manuscript titled “Tommy Douglas and Me” printed on October 2, 2010.
McGuinness wrote promotional pieces for businesses such as McKenzie Seeds, The Keystone Centre, possibly Patmore’s Nursery, and Westman Communications Group. He wrote for industry magazines and newsletters such as CP Trucking News, BC Business Journal, TV Times, and Western People. He also contributed memoirs to the Manitoba History Journal. He was invited to submit contributions to the World Book Encyclopedia (1977) and Encyclopedia of Manitoba (2007).
In the 1990s, McGuinness was a consultant with the WESTARC Group, the non-profit Western Training and Applied Research Centre affiliated with Brandon University. The group was concerned with the project management, research, training, and economic development of communities and organizations in Western Canada. McGuinness would be involved in a number of economic development workshops and rural forums through his work with WESTARC.
Additional freelance work was contracted by the Manitoba government to write business profiles about Manitoban entrepreneurs; these stories/profiles were published as booklets for distribution titled: Bootstrap Two (1989), Bootstrap Three (1994), and Bootstrap Four (1995).
McGuinness’ interests in rural development lead to writing assignments for the Community Futures Program and Western Diversification Series. He accepted a five-year writing assignment for Industry Canada (1996 – 2000) and the Community Access Program, which focused on introducing the internet into rural communities.
Custodial History
Accession 1-2015 contains records created and collected over the course of McGuinness’ career as a newspaper journalist and freelance writer. The Estate of Fred McGuinness donated the materials to the SJ McKee Archives circa 2011. The Archives accessioned the records in 2015.
Scope and Content
The subseries contains records created and collected by Fred McGuinness during his time as a journalist, editor, and freelance writer in Manitoba. The records consist of research materials (e.g., newspaper clippings, copies of articles and book chapters, brochures, pamphlets), notes, drafts, copies of articles and reports, and correspondence.
Notes
Information in the history/biography was taken from documents in the Miscellaneous freelance subseries (McG 3.2)
In the file level inventories, square brackets at the end of file names reference the original location of the file in the unprocessed Fred McGuinness collection. The original location is also noted on the front of each file folder
Accruals
Closed
Finding Aid
A file level inventory is available
Storage Location
2015 accessions
Related Material
Fred McGuinness would write/publish about a topic in a number of forums. Therefore, it is possible research materials pertaining to this subseries may be found in the Fred McGuinness collection subseries: Correspondence (McG 1.2), Brandon Sun (McG 2.2), Neighborly News (McG 2.3), The Reader’s Digest (McG 3.1), Local history research (McG 4.1), and Talks and workshops (McG 6.3)
Arrangement
Arrangement was artificially created by the Archives. Subseries has been re-arranged according to publication period
