This material consists of business documents and correspondence reflecting the activities of the St. Lawrence Steamboat Co., mostly for the pre-1840 period, although there are documents dating to 1863. The major portion of the fonds, comprising 83 of a total 89 volumes, consist of freight books (1819-1833) and passage books (1822-1838). These logs provide information on passengers and goods carried between Montreal and Quebec, as well as other stops such as Chambly. The fonds includes information on fifteen steamboats and two barges, operated by the St. Lawrence Steamboat Company, which made voyages between 1819 and 1838. The data found in the vessel logs in the fonds include names of vessels, details on their crews, quantities of fuel aboard such as wood and coal, and the number of downbound voyages (that is, from Montreal to Quebec) and upbound voyages per seasons (generally from May through November). Lists of cabin and steerage passengers as well as descriptions and quantities of goods carried between Montreal, Chambly, Sorel, Trois-Rivieres, and Quebec are also sometimes included in the logs. The information also includes charges levied for passage and for freight as well as the names of consignors (shippers of goods) and consignees (receivers of goods, usually a merchant), as well as the destination address. The steamboats found in the fonds also frequently towed barges and brigs, whose names are sometimes recorded along with the charges levied. In addition to these vessel logs, the fonds also includes: account books, 1803-1818, 1844, 1851; wage books, 1826-1832-1835; bills of lading, 1812-1813; and letterbooks, 1827-1829, 1843-1863. One book of account pertains to laundering costs for the years 1819 to 1828; a journal (log book) for the “Lady Sherbrooke” for 1823 is also included. Finally, there is an inventory of furniture, bedding and wares onboard th steamers in 1829, 1831, and 1833, and an unrelated and incomplete pay list for dock workers dated September 1892.

The fonds consists of manuscripts and drafts of literary compositions and other working documents, as well as professional and personal correspondence.

The fonds consists of Scobie’s personal records relating to his career as a prominent author, poet and critic in Canada between 1966 and 1989. The bulk of the records consists of his written materials; manuscripts and drafts of published and unpublished poetry, novels, short stories, critical writings, including annotated drafts of his books on bpNichol and Leonard Cohen, as well as various notes, both typed and handwritten, unproduced film scripts and a libretto. The files also include some peripheral and administrative documents relating to his publications, such as book sales receipts, royalty agreements, and reviews, as well as promotional materials relating to lectures, poetry readings and other events. Other materials include correspondence between Scobie and friends, publishers, and other organizations and individuals, as well as selected editions of White Pelican, a literary journal that Scobie edited, from 1971-1973.

The fonds documents Canadian poet and novelist Steven Heighton’s literary career through correspondence with writers and editors as well as material documenting his writing activities. The records contain his literary and professional correspondence between 1994-1995 and 2001-2010, including extensive correspndence with correspondents such as Al Purdy, John Metcalfe, David Helwig, Michael Redhill, George Elliott Clarke, and Judith Cowan . There are also notes, manuscripts, research materials, drafts, and reviews for the following works: The address book (2004), “The stages of J. Gordon Whitehead” (short story, 2002), Afterlands (2005), Patient frame (2010), Every lost country (2010), as well as chapbooks, letterpress books, and essays. There are also reviews for other literary works as well as documents relating to Heighton's writer-in-resident positions.

Collections consists of theater, music, and dramatic productions, between 1911 and 1915, collected by T. Wesley Mills.

The collection consists of 287 negatives, 65 prints and 179 copy negatives from photographer Tappan Adney. The collection documents his passage in the Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890s. The negatives depict various geographic landscapes, people and animals, settlements, and day-to-day mining activities in numerous locations, such as, Dawson, Skagway, Lower Yukon, Bonanza Creek, El Dorado, Chilkoot Trail, Nome, Dyea, Skookumchuck, Hunker Creek, Tagish and Dutch Harbor.

The Taylor White Collection is comprised of 938 watercolour paintings of mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. White, a British jurist, commissioned various artists of the day (including Charles Collins, Peter Paillou, Jacob Van Huysum, George Edwards, and Eleazar Albin) to paint these animal portraits from live and dead specimens brought back to England from around the world. Many of the paintings are accompanied by loose-leaf manuscript notes, written mainly by White in Latin, providing further information about the animal; transcriptions and English translations of these notes have been provided within the record for each painting.

This collection consists of contemporary copies of letters written by T. Blackwood from Michilimackinac to James and Andrew McGill & Co., to Ch. Chaboillez, and to T. and J. McGregor.

Typed transcriptions of Charles McKenzie’s narratives about the Indigenous people of MIssouri, draft and revised draft before publication; Alexander Henry’s account entitled: “Account of a visit to the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians in 1806”; and John Macdonell’s “The Red River”. Also includes drafts for work entitled, "Early fur trade on the Northern Plains : Canadian traders among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818 : the narratives of John Macdonell, David Thompson, Franc̦ois-Antoine Larocque, and Charles McKenzie" / edited and with an introduction by W. Raymond Wood and Thomas D. Thiessen. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

Catalogue of books in King's library in Montréal.