The photo shows 27 men standing on the ship in front of the bridge. The annotation on the back says: This is the crew of the DGS Samson and the Government Surveying party bound for the (illegible) with the initials JSK (James Stanley Keefe). DGS stood for Dominion Government ship and by the 1950s the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom. Parts of the image have faded and the card has some slight creases.

Fonds consists of a photocopy of a letter from Captain George Henry Richards, HM Surveying Ship Plumper, Langley Fraser River to His excellency James Douglas Esq., Governor of British Columbia, dated 21 January 1859 regarding the necessity of lighthouses on the Race Islands and Fisgard rocks.

The 17 maps cover the west coast of British Columbia, but primarily the south coast of Vancouver Island, with some coverage of Vancouver Island and the coast of the mainland. The maps contain small corrections from the time that they were published.

From the charts it is possible to get the names of the surveyors, see a pattern of the most common to show up are PC Musgrave, WK Willis, HD Parizeau, F Anderson, JH Knight, HP Douglas. Along with publication info there was also the occasional mention of JD (John Dennett) Potter who sold them as he was an agent for the Admiralty charts.

The series contains 17 maps:
1944-Map of Esquimalt Harbour
1934- Colour Map of Esquimalt Harbour
1940-Map of Victoria Harbour
1914-Map of Sooke Inlet
1908-Map of Masset Harbour (survey done on ship Egeria)
1943-Map of Fraser River: Steveston to Tilbury Island
1943-Colour Map of Nanaimo Harbour
1935-Map of Plans of South Coast of Vancouver Island (Esquimalt and Victoria Harbours)
1925-Map of Esquimalt and Victoria Harbours (survey done on HMS Hecate)
1928-Map of Vancouver Island Race Rocks to Discovery Island
1900-Map of Vancouver Island and Adjacent Shores
1878-Map of Becher Bay
1939-Colour Map of Rivers Inlet and Nelson Narrows
1922-Colour Map of Granby Bay, Alice Arm
1942-Colour Map of Prince Rupert Harbour and Approaches
1929-Colour Map of Approaches to Skeena River
1943-Map of Plans in the Vicinity of Fitz Hugh Sound (Namu Harbour, Kwakshua Channel, Passages in Vicinity of Addenbroke Island)

Fonds consists of

• Rules and instructions for the guidance of light keepers book published in 1904,

• Booklet containing the regulations governing landing, storage, and use of oils and fuels at government lighthouses, fog alarms, and depots issued by the Department of Transport, Marine Services,

• Two lists of buoys, beacons, and day marks and other aids to navigation on the pacific coast of the dominion of Canada books published in 1919, one is missing its cover,

• The rules and instructions for light keepers and fog alarm engineers and rules governing buoys and beacons book published 1953,

• A manual for diamond incandescent petroleum vapour burners published by the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 1912,

• Instruction manual for coast lighting by acetylene and automatic acetylene fog signal guns for maritime signalling,

• Department of Marine and Fisheries field book containing survey notes of lighthouses and beacon sites written by C.H. Ellacott, 1915,

• Photocopies of reports and correspondence dating to the late 1890s, early 1900s, related to lighthouse service at various locations,

• Photocopies of Department of Marine and Fisheries Canada Lighthouse Service dating from 1903 to 1945 and from 1934 to 1956,

• Folders containing documents related to the movements of coast guard fleet vessel CCGS Sir James Douglas dating from 1984 to 1987. Includes correspondence, reports, charts and tables, and blueprints,

-Ringbound volume for CCGS Identity program, Ministry of Supply and Services Canada, 15 December 1983.

• Book containing writing from the 17th Law of the Sea Institute Conference held in Oslo, Norway, 13-16 July 1983, containing paper by Carl August Fleischer titled "The Exclusive Economic Zone Under the Convention Regime and in State Practice".

-Also includes 3 photo albums, detailing the construction and surveying of lighthouses.