Fonds contains textual material consisting of correspondence, 1826-1932; diaries, letterbooks, financial records, 1879-1928; subject files, 1877-1929; drafts of articles, newsclippings, scrapbooks, postcards, 1880-1931; oversize documents, 1884-1917; and the John Woodside diary, 1876.
Graphic material in the fonds includes photographs depicting personnel and activities of the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles; aspects of the Klondike Gold Rush; portraits of various military personnel; the wreck of the S.S. Crofton Hall; locations in Canada, the United States, and Europe; the career of H.J Woodside, and portraits of Woodside, his family, and friends.
Graphic material in the fonds also consists of prints and drawings; these include post cards depicting various Canadian regions, drawings of the Confederation reunion, and two portraits.
Fonds also contains a sound recording of talks by King George V and Queen Mary and music of the Band of His Majesty's Coldstream Guards, [ca. 1923].
Fonds consists of eight architectural blueprints of plans and elevations of a bungalow for Joan W. Woodside, designed by J.E. Scheller, Architect, Chicago and a map of the routes of the Grand Trunk Pacific Steamship service in British Columbia, a map of railway and steamsnhip lines in the sourthern portion of the Yukon Territory, a general map of the Yukon Territory and a map of Port Arthur District Canada 1887.
Woodside, H.J., 1858-1929 : Colonel H.J. Woodside, was born in 1858 in Arkwright, Ontario, and was educated at Owen Sound and Prince Arthur's Landing. He married Josephine V. Huestis of Halifax, N.S., in 1902. In 1878 he joined the C.P.R. and worked on telegraph and railway construction. From 1880 to 1898, Woodside managed a series of enterprises at Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, including a jewellery business, the newspaper, Manitoba Liberal, and a general insurance agency. He journeyed to the Yukon in 1898 and the following year became managing editor of the Yukon Sun. Upon his resignation from the newspaper in 1901, he was appointed Census Commissioner for the Yukon Territory.
Woodside left the Yukon in 1904 and after periods of residence at Winnipeg and Guelph, he settled in Ottawa in 1906 as city manager of the Imperial Guarantee and Accident Company.
Woodside served in the Northwest Rebellion and remained active in the Canadian militia for the rest of his life. He saw service in the South African War with the 2nd C.M.R. in 1902 and was wounded in France in May 1916 while serving with the 5th C.M.R. In 1918, he toured the southern United States to promote the Liberty Loan Drive.
See also: Morgan, The Canadian Men and Women of the time, 1912.
