Announced March 20, 2018, author Jan Peterson will be recognized with an Honour in Heritage Award from the City of Nanaimo at a ceremony on April 5, 2018. The City of Nanaimo’s annual Culture & Heritage Awards recognizes individuals and groups that make Nanaimo a more culturally vibrant city.
The heritage award, a new category in 2018, is presented to individuals and organizations that “demonstrate outstanding support, advocacy, promotion, or interpretation of Nanaimo’s heritage and history,” says the announcement on the city’s website.
Jan Peterson, a former journalist at the Alberni Valley Times, has published eleven books on the history of the Nanaimo and Port Alberni areas, including six for BC publisher Heritage House. These include the trilogy Black Diamond City, Hub City, and Harbour City, about the development of Nanaimo from the 1850s to 1967; Kilts on the Coast, a profile of early Scottish settlers on Vancouver Island; a history of Port Alberni, More Than Just a Mill Town; and the most recent, Mark Bate, a biography of Nanaimo’s popular first mayor.
In commenting on the award, Heritage House publisher Rodger Touchie said that Peterson has been an exceptional author to work with, whose books represent “an important contribution to Vancouver Island culture that will be appreciated for generations to come.”
In a recent review of Mark Bate: Nanaimo’s First Mayor, VIU history professor John Hinde stated that the study “fills an important gap in the story of early Nanaimo, and Jan Peterson has done a great service to Bate and the region’s history.”
Jan Peterson is one of four Nanaimo citizens to be honoured at the 2018 Nanaimo Culture & Heritage Awards Celebration, a free event at the Port Theatre in Nanaimo on Thursday, April 5, 2018. Other award recipients include singer-songwriter Rick Scott, Coast Salish artist William Good, and poet Audrey Alexandra Brown.
Author photo by Chris Bush, The Nanaimo News Bulletin
2 replies on “Author Jan Peterson to receive inaugural Nanaimo heritage award”
[…] town. There are many good books and sources about Nanaimo’s coal history, especially by author Jan Peterson, who has written six local histories. In fact, I would defer completely to Peterson on any […]
Congratulations Jan Peterson in receiving inaugural Nanaimo heritage award for your book on Mark Bate: Nanaimo’s First Mayor. I read this wonderful book and found it informative and entertaining. I’ve added it to my collection of Jan Peterson’s books.