Chung Collection >> Introduction

When Wally Chung was just six years old he spent many hours in his father’s Victoria tailor shop. One thing in particular that fascinated Wally was a colourful illustrated poster of the Empress of Asia, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company ship that brought his mother to Canada in 1919. It fired the boy’s imagination and inspired him to start collecting.

Starting with little things clipped from newspapers and magazines for his scrapbook, Dr. Chung assembled an extensive research collection of more than 25,000 items on the exploration of the Pacific Northwest, the Chinese experience in North America and particularly in British Columbia, the history of British Columbia, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company story.

The Chung Collection includes many rare and unique items: documents, books, maps, posters, paintings, photographs, silver, glass, ceramic ware and other artifacts. One of the most exceptional and extensive collections of its kind in North America, it is both a personal collection and a national treasure. It is about the place where the collector was born and grew up, about his family roots, and about a railway that transformed his country. That a collection of this size and scope has been assembled by one person over a sixty year period is extraordinary.

Dr. Chung has collected this body of material piece-by-piece and systematically arranged it into sixty-five series and thirty-seven sub-series. The collection has an intense relevance to the history of British Columbia and its people, and offers insights into the very essence of what it is to be Canadian.

Only a small fraction of the total collection can be exhibited at any one time. Selections from the collection have been organized to show some of the most compelling stories of Canada’s past.

The broad themes of the collection, and in particular the Chinese experience in Canada, run parallel to the life of Dr. Chung himself. His grandfather left China for the California goldfields, later coming north to Victoria in 1887. Dr. Chung’s father immigrated to Victoria in 1897 where he opened a tailor shop on Cormorant Street. His mother immigrated from China aboard the steamship Empress of Asia some years later in 1919.

Born in Victoria, Wallace Chung attended Victoria College, the University of British Columbia and McGill University and was among the early Chinese Canadians to embark on a professional career. Returning in 1953 to live in Vancouver, he married Dr. Madeline Chung (née Huang), with whom he had two children, Maria and Stephen.

Dr. Wallace Chung specialized in vascular surgery throughout his forty year career. He retired from the University of British Columbia in 1991 as Professor of Surgery and Head of the Department of Surgery at the UBC Hospital. He has contributed generously to the community as an active member and chair of numerous cultural boards, among them the Canadian Multiculturalism Council, British Columbia Heritage Trust, Vancouver Chinese Cultural Centre, and the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

Dr. Madeline Chung was born in Shanghai, China, and grew up in Hong Kong. She came to North America in 1949 and specialized in obstetrics and gynecology. Throughout her career in Vancouver, which spanned more than forty years, she delivered over 6,500 babies. In 1999 she was made an honorary Life Member of the British Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is a founding member of the True Light Chinese School in Vancouver and, like her husband, has contributed greatly to the community.

Download an interview with Dr. Chung
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