This series comprises the records of the Labourer-Teacher Program of Frontier College, the original program of Frontier College and its raison d'être from its founding until it developed other complementary literacy programs in the 1960s and 1970s. The program places labourer-teachers in the field where they work in lumber or mining camps, rail gangs, agricultural operations, and other remote or isolated environments during the day and teach their fellow workers to read and write and other basic skills during the evenings. As such, this series is essentially a continuation and expansion of the Instructors' Correspondence sub-series and Instructors' Files series acquired with the original donation in 1970s which document the core teaching activity of Frontier College.
The series holds individual files on labourer-teachers; applications and recruiting records; correspondence with government agencies, non-governmental organisations, businesses, universities, and staff; projects and program development files; financial, budget and inventory reports; publicity and newsletters; and miscellaneous files. The labourer-teacher files include correspondence and reports regarding employment and conditions in the field, and resumes of labourer-teachers, while material relating to applications, withdrawn, pending, non-active, and rejected applications are scattered throughout the series. There is also correspondence with Lloyd Axworthy, Minister of Employment and Immigration; the Northern Municipal Council; the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada; D.R. Yeomans, Commissioner of Corrections Canada; John Howard Society; and Northwest River Day Care. Relations with Manitoba Hydro, Quebec Cartier Mining, the University of British Columbia, the University of Western Ontario, and Queen's University are also documented in this series. There are other records relating to the projects at Kelly Lake, Rankin Inlet, Cold Lake, Spence Bay, and Elliot Lake, and information on the Prison Literacy Initiative Program. Unspecified programs are documented in Program Development files for each province. Some other items include publicity articles from newspapers; copies of Frontier College's monthly publication, Chimo; samples of corrected student assignments; and an untitled manuscript of a novel or short story, probably written by Edmund Bradwin.
