This fonds contains records dealing with every aspect of the Manitoba Pool Elevators organization, from the events leading to its formation in the 1920's, to its amalgamation as part of Agricore beginning in the late 1990's. Fonds includes records of the local co-operative elevator association established in the period 1925 - 1968 under the Co-operative Associations Act including organizational papers, minutes of executive board, minutes of shareholders annual meeting, financial statements, correspondence, membership lists, miscellaneous. Also to be found are documents related to the Royal Commission re the Manitoba Pool Elevators Limited ca. 1931 and miscellaneous documents, 1925 -1952, central office papers consisting of annual reports, circulars to local co-operative elevator associations and documents related to various other activities of the Manitoba Pool Elevators organization. Fonds also contains documents pertaining to the Manitoba Co-operative Poultry Marketing Association Limited and its successor, the Manitoba Dairy and Poultry Co-operative Limited, and related agencies.Books acquired for the Manitoba Pool Elevator Library,a complete run of both the Scoop Shovel (the Pool's first newspaper)and the Manitoba Cooperator, photographs, slides, audiotapes, and reel-to-reel video's, dating from the 1890's to 2001 round out the fonds which also includes a small number of miscellaneous items are also included, such as banners, and company issued briefcases.

The fonds consists of textual records, photographs and artifacts from A.E. McKenzie Seed Co. Ltd. The textual records include minutes, documents, financial records, administrative records, by-laws, legal records, catalogues, sales literature, seed packets, newspaper clippings, appraisals, publications, scrapbooks and miscellaneous sections. In addition, some of the records within the fonds relate to the operations of McKenzie subsidiaries -- Brett-Young Seeds, Steele-Briggs Seeds, Pike & Co. and McFayden Seeds -- and various properties owned by McKenzie Seeds. There are approximately 500 photographs that depict the operations and employees of McKenzie Seeds and the seed industry in general. The artifacts include blueprints, newspaper clippings, copper printing plates, seed bags and plaques. As well, an artificially created series of records dealing with Brandon College Inc., the McKenzie Foundation, the Brandon Allied Arts Council and the Brandon Board of Trade has been created within the fonds but identified as records outside the provenance of the McKenzie Seed Co. Of particular interest within the textual records are the transcripts of various features of the company's history as dictated, researched and remembered by its second President/General Manager, J. Lasby Lowes. The fonds also contains an almost complete catalogue collection with high production values. Outside of the seed industry, the records dealing with both Brandon College Inc. and the McKenzie Foundation are significant pieces of the history of Brandon College/University and the City of Brandon. Within the photograph collection, the pictures of the McKenzie Strike of 1944 are worth mentioning; aside from these photographs there is no record within the fonds that mentions the event. The photographs depicting the operations and workers of McKenzie Seeds, both in the plant and in the field are also noteworthy, as are the product production photos, as they provide a visual history of agriculture and the seed industry in Western Canada.

The bulk of this collection falls into five main categories: records dealing with the Brandon Packers Strike of 1960 and the subsequent legal actions against the owners, including all 2215 pages of the Brandon Packers Strike Commission; records dealing with the Commission of Inquiry into The Pas Forestry and Industrial Complex, including the complete transcript of the inquiry measuring approximately 5m (This Commission dealt with the conduct of Churchill Forest Industries, a company owned by a Swiss financial firm, which, in the 1960's, was given approximately 93 million dollars by the Roblin Provincial Government to develop The Pas Forestry and Industrial Complex. Churchill Forest Industries and its parent company subsequently came under suspicion of fraud and accused of fradulently transfering The Pas Forestry funds into other foreign business interests); records dealing with business loans awarded by the Manitoba Development Corporation during the 1970's and 1980's to businesses primarily within Manitoba; records dealing with McKenzie Seeds, and McKenzie Steele-Briggs Seeds during the early 1980's when George MacDowell was a board member of McKenzie Seeds; and records dealing with Professor MacDowell's career as a Professor at Brandon University, including records relating to his courses and to administrative activities. To a lesser extent, this collection includes records dealing with the University of Saskatchewan College of Commerce, the publication the Manitoba New Democrat, issues associated with politics, labor and union in the prairie provinces from the 1960's to the 1980's, articles from various economic periodicals including Economica and Public Finance, a variety of government reports from 1941 to 1981, and records dealing with George MacDowells' relationship with the Brandon Firefighters Association.

This collection has been artificially created and consists of miscellaneous newspaper and magazine clippings, handbooks, newsletters, photos and song sheets collected by various unknown Manitoba Women's Institute branches. Some newletters included in the collection are "Institute News" from the Manitoba Women's Institute, "National Farm Forum Guide", "Federated News" from the Federated Women's Institute of Canada and "The Country Woman" from Associated Women of the World. The newspaper clippings in the collection relate to Women's Institute branches around Manitoba and the rest of Canada.

This fonds contains a copy of "By Section, Township & Range: Studies in Prairie Settlement", by John Langton Tyman. This publication was based on Tyman's doctoral thesis, (which is also included in this fonds)completed in 1970 and titled "The Disposition of Farm Lands in Western Manitoba, 1870 - 1930: Studies in Prairie Settlement." Fonds also includes extensive research materials compiled by Dr. Tyman on prairie settlement. They include: copies of the Annual Report of the Department of the Interior; documents relating to C.P.R. land sales (c.1870-1900); personal accounts and local histories of municipalities in southern Manitoba such as Shoal Lake, Justice, and local C.P.R. lines; the Canadian Homestead Settlement Co.; The Free Land Homestead Co,; the Canadian Northwest Lands Co.; the N.W.H.B., C.N.R., Lake Manitoba Railway & Canal Co.; land grants given to Veterans; Wellams and Dominion Steamship Co.; maps of southern Manitoba RM's; Sowden and Co. (a land settlement company); corespondance to a Rev. L.O. Armstrong in Emerson (c. 1885); legislation; agricultural progress; history of school lands; correspondance to and from J. Tyman (c.1960); the settlement of Icelandic, Hungarian, and Scandinavian immigrants; a plethora of maps both relating to prairie settlement and to world geography; a manuscript by William Pearce (1925); a transcript titled "Patterns of Settlement"; 5 roles of microfilm containing maps and copies of some publications acquired by Dr. Tyman; a number of books and c.1900 publications to do with prairie settlement; maps by township and range of the prairies; 100 photos and drawings all c.1880 to 1900; extensive township summaries; and extensive land disposal records as recorded by the Lands Department, including the names of settlers.

The William Wallace fonds consists of hundreds of letters that Wiliam and his brother Andrew, wrote to their sister Maggie, who was in Scotland. The correspondence dates from 1881 until 1904. The first letter, dated 22 March 1881, was written by both William and Andrew who were aboard the S.S. Prussia as they sailed to North America from Scotland. The last letter was written on 4 January, 1904, by William Wallace. This letter was written to inform Maggie and her husband that William had reserved a homestead in Maggie's husband's name. William was keenly interested in everything going on around him; his letters and Andrew's reveal what life was like for inexperienced settlers on the Canadian agricultural frontier in the last years of the ninteenth century. Fonds touches on a variety of social, political and economic themes.

This collection includes correspondence, policy documents, and publications relating to the activities of the Royal Canadian Legion, primarily in Brandon under the Presidency of Laurie V. Smith, during and after the Second World War. Prominant themes include the aquiring of gifts for hospitalized veterans, primarily through the Canadian Legion Christmas Tree project, veteran rehabilitation, and promotion of the Candian Victory Loans project.

These fonds contain legal documents from A.C. Miller's farm near Roland Manitoba from 1916 to 1938. They include mortgage documents, lease agreements, and bank receipts.

The majority of the collection consists of records created and received by the Royal Commission on Grain Handling and Transportation (GHTC). Included are documents detailing numerious hearings from all four Western provinces. In addition to the GHTC hearings, there are also a number of documents given to the GHTC as reference material. These include information on the Snavely Commision, documents for the province of Alberta, various reports, the Prairie Regional Studies in Economic Geography (No. 1-27) and General Information. The collection also includes two maps given to the GHTC.

Fonds contains minutes of governing bodies (local and provincial) from 1979-1992, correspondence files of the Brandon MACSW, scrapbooks of the Brandon Action Committee (1972-1992), Action Newsletters (1979-1999), records of AGM (1982-1990), and extensive miscellaneous files dealing with activities, workshops and research concerns of the Brandon local of the Manitoba Action Committee of the Status of Women. These include files dealing with violence against women, rural women, northern women, child abuse, social policy, sexual orientation feminism, poverty, prostitution, pay equity, and racism, among others.