The fonds consists of manuscripts and drafts of literary compositions and other working documents, as well as professional and personal correspondence.

The fonds consists of Scobie’s personal records relating to his career as a prominent author, poet and critic in Canada between 1966 and 1989. The bulk of the records consists of his written materials; manuscripts and drafts of published and unpublished poetry, novels, short stories, critical writings, including annotated drafts of his books on bpNichol and Leonard Cohen, as well as various notes, both typed and handwritten, unproduced film scripts and a libretto. The files also include some peripheral and administrative documents relating to his publications, such as book sales receipts, royalty agreements, and reviews, as well as promotional materials relating to lectures, poetry readings and other events. Other materials include correspondence between Scobie and friends, publishers, and other organizations and individuals, as well as selected editions of White Pelican, a literary journal that Scobie edited, from 1971-1973.

The fonds documents Canadian poet and novelist Steven Heighton’s literary career through correspondence with writers and editors as well as material documenting his writing activities. The records contain his literary and professional correspondence between 1994-1995 and 2001-2010, including extensive correspndence with correspondents such as Al Purdy, John Metcalfe, David Helwig, Michael Redhill, George Elliott Clarke, and Judith Cowan . There are also notes, manuscripts, research materials, drafts, and reviews for the following works: The address book (2004), “The stages of J. Gordon Whitehead” (short story, 2002), Afterlands (2005), Patient frame (2010), Every lost country (2010), as well as chapbooks, letterpress books, and essays. There are also reviews for other literary works as well as documents relating to Heighton's writer-in-resident positions.

Collections consists of theater, music, and dramatic productions, between 1911 and 1915, collected by T. Wesley Mills.

The collection consists of 287 negatives, 65 prints and 179 copy negatives from photographer Tappan Adney. The collection documents his passage in the Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890s. The negatives depict various geographic landscapes, people and animals, settlements, and day-to-day mining activities in numerous locations, such as, Dawson, Skagway, Lower Yukon, Bonanza Creek, El Dorado, Chilkoot Trail, Nome, Dyea, Skookumchuck, Hunker Creek, Tagish and Dutch Harbor.

The Taylor White Collection is comprised of 938 watercolour paintings of mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. White, a British jurist, commissioned various artists of the day (including Charles Collins, Peter Paillou, Jacob Van Huysum, George Edwards, and Eleazar Albin) to paint these animal portraits from live and dead specimens brought back to England from around the world. Many of the paintings are accompanied by loose-leaf manuscript notes, written mainly by White in Latin, providing further information about the animal; transcriptions and English translations of these notes have been provided within the record for each painting.

This collection consists of contemporary copies of letters written by T. Blackwood from Michilimackinac to James and Andrew McGill & Co., to Ch. Chaboillez, and to T. and J. McGregor.

Typed transcriptions of Charles McKenzie’s narratives about the Indigenous people of MIssouri, draft and revised draft before publication; Alexander Henry’s account entitled: “Account of a visit to the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians in 1806”; and John Macdonell’s “The Red River”. Also includes drafts for work entitled, "Early fur trade on the Northern Plains : Canadian traders among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818 : the narratives of John Macdonell, David Thompson, Franc̦ois-Antoine Larocque, and Charles McKenzie" / edited and with an introduction by W. Raymond Wood and Thomas D. Thiessen. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

Catalogue of books in King's library in Montréal.

The collection contains thirteen documents concerning Lord Selkirk's conflict with the North West Company at the Red River Colony and Fort William. There is also a letter to Colonel Benjamin Walker, 1816.