Image credit: David Suzuki Foundation
UBC Archives has received the David Suzuki fonds, an archival collection that chronicles the professional work of internationally recognized scientist, environmentalist, and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki.
The collection is a treasure trove that includes book manuscripts, handwritten notes for speeches delivered by Dr. Suzuki throughout his career, correspondence relating to his published articles, his broadcasting and literary career, and his work in the Department of Zoology at UBC, materials from the David Suzuki Foundation, audio cassettes, research materials, photographs, video recordings of his CBC television series The Nature of Things, and much more.
We sat down to talk about the archive with Dr. Suzuki and Dr. Tara Cullis, award-winning author, former faculty member of Harvard University, president of the board and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, and partner of Dr. Suzuki. Regarding their ties to UBC, Dr. Suzuki is a UBC Professor Emeritus and Dr. Cullis is a UBC alumnus and recipient of the 2016 UBC Alumni Global Citizenship Award.
Our conversation explores how they decided to donate these materials to UBC, highlights from the archive, and how these materials can support future climate research.
Q: What motivated you to donate this archive to UBC?
Cullis: We are inundated with stuff, so we’re always trying to clear house somewhat and find a better home for some of the treasures that we have. But also, [these materials are] a record of a lot of interesting things that have happened over the years, and we don’t have a place for them. We don’t have the skills of an archivist… We chose UBC since that’s where David had been based for so long and had such a vibrant lab.
Image: Dr. David Suzuki in the Department of Zoology lab, 1978. UBC Open Collections.
Suzuki: I’d never thought about my legacy, and it was really Tara who saw the opportunity. I thought if I was going to leave it somewhere, UBC was the obvious place to leave it to, because I’d spent my whole life here. And maybe there’s a PhD student that might actually find it of interest.
Q: What would you say are some of the highlights of the archive for you? Are there any particular materials you’re excited for people to discover?
Cullis: I know one of them is David’s letter from Prince Charles—he was then Prince Charles—which David got about 40 years ago… I think [that letter] really opened our eyes to how profound an understanding of the environment, and the issues involved, Prince Charles had… That letter that he sent, which I think is about 11 pages, handwritten, it’s one of our treasures.
Suzuki: That’s a whole thesis in itself. That letter was so revelatory. He was a young prince, the king-in-waiting… He was still a young man then, but he had nailed the environmental issues. He said at the beginning [of the letter] that someone had put a speech that I had given on his desk, and he had read it. And he kept pulling things out of my speech that he agreed with.
“We chose UBC since that’s where David had been based for so long and had such a vibrant lab.”
Q: How have your views on environmental issues evolved over the years?
Suzuki: I began my public speaking career as a geneticist, and I was very concerned about the way genetics had been applied in the past and the potential of genetic engineering. So I was really focused on my discipline of science and the effect on the public, but over time, increasingly, I became more involved in environmental issues.
And so my speeches, which all began [with a focus on] genetics, became more of an introduction into my more recent concerns…. When I began speaking about genetics in the 1960s, I thought cloning was going to take decades. The speed with which scientists have acquired technological control [over genetics] has been absolutely amazing. Who could have ever dreamt that we would not only be able to decipher the entire human genome by the year 2001, but that we can now make genes at will. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, it was unthinkable that we would have the technology to actually go in and alter specific genes.
“I began my public speaking career as a geneticist, and I was very concerned about the way genetics had been applied in the past and the potential of genetic engineering.”
Q: How is this evolution reflected in the archives?
Suzuki: My speeches are very interesting because I write out all of my speeches longhand. If you look at a speech I gave in 1965, and one that I gave in 1970 and in 1975, I think it would be a very interesting to see the evolution of my thinking, because certainly my ideas now about the environmental impact are fundamentally different from 1962.
Cullis: I would like to look back at early warnings, and just see how far along we are on that kind of checklist of things that were going to happen. That’s a bit of research I would like to do.
Image: Dr. Suzuki delivering speeches in 1971 (right) and 1990 (left). UBC Open Collections.
This is great news for UBC as David Suzuki has been such a significant voice for science and on particular science education. His contributions to Canadian children’s literature and media has been huge. Congratulations!