The BC Heritage Awards celebrate outstanding achievements and best practices that have impacted and strengthened all forms of heritage as a valued cultural resource.
They recognize the achievements of individuals, organizations, groups, businesses, and local and regional governments in communities across BC.
Not ready to apply yet? You can prepare your nomination using this worksheet.
Click Here to View Award Recipients
Conservation: Recognizing best practices in the preservation, rehabilitation, and restoration of historic places.
NEW! Small but Mighty Conservation Award: Recognizing heritage conservation in communities and organizations whose perseverance and dedication more than compensate for small budgets and few staff.
Eligibility : Historic buildings and places, and cultural landscapes.
Recognizing excellence in programming that advances the appreciation, understanding, and practice of tangible and intangible cultural heritage as it relates to places in BC.
Eligibility : Historic places, cultural heritage, tangible and intangible heritage ; Education or Interpretation through social media, publications, displays, exhibits, or other outputs, actions or initiatives that promote heritage.
Recognizing best practices for the planning and management of heritage places through reports, studies, and plans, as well as ongoing maintenance, operations, and reprogramming.
Eligibility : Community Heritage Planning ; Cultural and heritage resource management ; Adaptable and compatible re-uses for continued-use, which may not include full conservation ; Planning initiatives for long-term conservation and maintenance plans, community plans, zoning or financial incentives
Lifetime Achievement: Recognizing heritage professionals who have made a career-long, cumulative impact and contribution to the practice and understanding of heritage in BC.
NEW! Emerging Heritage Professional: Recognizing heritage professionals who have worked the sector for under 10 years, and nonetheless made an impact on the advancement and understanding of heritage in BC.
Eligibility: Professionals working in the heritage sector within fields such as … Archaeology & Anthropology, Conservation, Craft & Trade, Cultural Tourism, Education, Environmental Assessment, History, Architecture and Landscape, Engineering, Historic Sites, Museums and Archives, Planners, Public Sector, etc.
Ruby Nobbs Distinguished Service: Recognizing volunteers who have made a life-long commitment, and who have shaped heritage in their communities through significant contributions and leadership
Learn more about Ruby Nobbs, and her impact on heritage in BC here.
NEW! Outstanding Impact Volunteer: Recognizing volunteers who have demonstrated dedication above and beyond to make a specific program, project or initiative a reality.
Eligibility: Must be nominated for work accomplished in a volunteer capacity
Recognizing initiatives and programs that contribute to the ongoing commitment in an organization to inclusivity, including reconciliation and/or redress, and expanded recognition, and have taken tangible steps that have made differences in how they operate, develop and deliver programs, and inspire their communities.
Eligibility: Tangible and intangible heritage ; Internal (changes within an organization), external (public facing events, programs) ; Partnerships
Levels of Recognition
Recognition | Honour | Outstanding | ||
Demonstrates strong quality of work, completed with the implementation of best practices and heritage values. | Demonstrates impressive quality of work, including following best practices, incorporating heritage values, resulting in a significant impact. | Should be upheld as an example of best practice, and its impacts may include increasing standards due to new innovations. Embodies Heritage Values. |
Criteria Considered
1. Quality | 2. Impact | 3. Heritage Values | ||
Did the nominee achieve an excellence of work that is consistent with previous awards winners? | Did the nominee contribute to Heritage Conservation, the Practice of Heritage, and/or Sustainability and Growth in Community? | Did the nominee demonstrate an awareness of and consideration for Heritage Values in their work? (see below) |
Heritage Values
We believe that Heritage…
– Includes the tangible, intangible, natural and cultural environment.
– Works for the betterment of society, its development and its enjoyment.
– Requires different perspectives, approaches and worldviews, and a multiplicity of representations and interpretations to form its complexities.
– Requires community engagement and collaborations at its foundation.
– Requires building capacities across the sector for its growth and sustainability.
Eligibility
Process
The BC Heritage Awards Timeline
Early January : Nomination period opens
End of February: Nomination period closes
March : Jury meets and evaluates nominations
April : Award winners are notified privately
May : Awards winners are announced publicly at the Heritage BC Annual Conference
The late Ruby Nobbs (March 20, 1907 to April 4, 2001) stands as an example of dedicated heritage volunteerism.
Living her whole life in the small mountain community of Revelstoke, she dedicated her best years to the benefit of her community. She was a founding member of the Revelstoke and District Historical Association, and instrumental in helping that organization start Revelstoke Museum and Archives. Ruby acted as museum manager from 1982 – 1999. She was also an early member of the Revelstoke Heritage Railway Society, and was a driving force behind the establishment of the Revelstoke Railway Museum.
Ruby served for many years on Revelstoke’s Heritage Commission, and was a member of the board of Heritage BC. Ruby is known for her two books published on Revelstoke’s history, the second of which was published in 1998 when she was 91 years old and partially blind. Her commitment as a volunteer in her community and its heritage helped formed the foundation of heritage advocacy and protection as we now know it in British Columbia.
The Ruby Nobbs Distinguished Service award seeks to recognize other volunteers who carry the same spirit as Ruby did.
Nominate an outstanding volunteer from your community. Learn more about the award here.
Thank you to Cathy English at the Revelstoke Museum and Archives for providing information on and photos of Ruby. Find Ruby’s books at the museum bookstore.
The BC Heritage Awards jury is composed of heritage professionals that represent a diversity of disciplines and regions from across the province. It comprises of a mix of BCAHP members, Heritage BC Board Directors, and other heritage practitioners based in BC. The jury receives awards submissions in advance of a virtual adjudication meeting. They rate the awards nominations using a rubric that draws from the criteria outlined above. The awards jury members are announced after the recipients of the given year’s awards program.
![]() |
Berdine Jonker, CAHP, Director, Heritage BC Awards Committee Member Berdine is a registered heritage professional with over 20 years’ experience working in the sector in BC. She is a board director for Heritage BC, and for the BC Association of Heritage Professionals, and is the recently appointed chair of the City of Nelson’s Heritage Working Group. |
![]() |
Adam Hatch, CAHP, AIBC, Architect, Director, Heritage BC Awards Committee Member Adam Hatch is a registered architect and professional CAHP member working at hcma architecture + design in Vancouver. He has experience working on a broad range of built heritage conservation projects ranging in scale from historic wood frame houses to high-rise masonry buildings. He also serves on Heritage BC’s Board. |
![]() |
Christina Reid, MA, Director, Heritage BC Awards Committee Member Christina Reid is the Executive Director of Heritage Abbotsford Society, a Heritage BC Director, and volunteers for the Swedish Heritage in BC Museum and Archives. She holds a MA in archaeology in combination with a Cultural Resource Management diploma, and applies those skills to projects in the Fraser Valley and the Baltic region. |
![]() |
Laura Saimoto, Entrepreneur, Consultant, Heritage Activist
Born and raised in Vancouver, Laura has a double major in History & Japanese from UBC, with a master’s degree in sociology from Sophia University in Tokyo. With a business background working in Asia and Vancouver, she has two decades of experience as a community leader in the Japanese Canadian community, and has worked extensively around the education of Japanese Canadian history by transforming built heritage to living cultural heritage. |
![]() |
Jenni Pace, Architectural Historian, Heritage Consultant
Jenni lives and works in Vancouver, on the traditional, unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. She’s an enthusiastic proponent of community heritage as the basis for equitable public decisions on Reconciliation, development and sustainable stewardship. She currently serves on the Vancouver Heritage Commission and is Vice President of the Society of Architectural Historians-Pacific Northwest chapter. |