Robert \u201cLucky\u201d Budd, left, and Roy Henry Vickers have co-authored close to 20 books together, with more to be released in 2026. (photo from \u201cLucky\u201d Budd)<\/i><\/p>\n
As oral historian Robert \u201cLucky\u201d Budd tells it, his collaboration with First Nations artist Roy Henry Vickers, which has produced several award-winning and bestselling books, was accurately summed up during a car ride with Vickers\u2019 sister, Patricia, as a unique version of a father-son bond.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoy\u2019s the same age as both of my parents, and I am the same age as one of his sons. So, we do have this relationship that\u2019s very, very close, and there definitely is a bit of a father-son element to it,\u201d said Budd, who is a member of the Victoria Jewish community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider him one of my closest friends, and I love learning with and from him, and we learn a lot together, and he teaches me something all the time. I\u2019m so deeply interested in the stories he has to share.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the past 14 years, the pair has teamed up on a variety of projects, but the path that led them to one another, according to Budd, goes back decades, to when Vickers was in high school in Victoria.<\/p>\n
His art teacher, realizing that there was little to teach his student, tasked the young Vickers with delving into the art of the Tsimshian and the Haida. Missing his home on the Skeena River, in Hazelton, Vickers started his research, but his efforts yielded no results until he met cultural anthropologist Wilson Duff.<\/p>\n
Through Duff, Vickers was able to locate books and recordings, such as those produced by CBC journalist Imbert Orchard, who, from 1959 to 1966, recorded interviews with BC pioneers and those from First Nations. On the cassettes, Vickers listened to stories of the people of the Tsimshian and was moved.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years, he ended up losing those tapes, but it stuck with him. And so, around 2009, 2010, he went on a mission to try to find those recordings,\u201d Budd said.<\/p>\n
Vickers got in touch with the BC Archives, but nobody there knew what he was talking about, until he spoke to someone who said, \u201cOh, I think the person you\u2019re supposed to be talking to is Lucky Budd.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vickers called Budd, asking for help in retrieving the recordings, and their work together began.<\/p>\n
Budd holds a master\u2019s in history from the University of Victoria; he is also a rock musician with a penchant for recording everything. At the time of Vickers\u2019 call, he was digitizing audio recordings owned by the CBC and the BC Archives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crown jewel was the Orchard Collection,\u201d said Budd. \u201cAnd it hit me very early on that I was supposed to turn that material into a book because I was getting an education on the history of the province that no one had ever heard before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Budd\u2019s first book, Voices of British Columbia<\/i>, was based on those recordings, and many of the ones that interested Vickers were in the book.<\/p>\n
Budd returned Vickers\u2019 call, telling him, \u201cI know exactly who you are, I know exactly what you\u2019re looking for, I can help you find those stories. It\u2019d be my pleasure to do so.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n By this time, Budd had started a business, Memories to Memoirs, where he interviews and records people to help them tell their stories. He asked Vickers if he had thought of sharing his.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018Oh no, no, no, I\u2019m way too young to do a thing like that,\u2019\u201d Budd recalled. \u201cI was joking with him, and I took a little risk, and I said, \u2018Hey man, didn\u2019t you just release a print called \u201c65 Years\u201d? Doesn\u2019t that mean that you get an old-age pension?\u2019 And I started laughing, and he said, \u2018OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n After deciding that he had found the right person to work on his story, Vickers invited Budd to visit him in Tofino on Nov. 11, 2011.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hit it off like old friends. Roy, in that moment, was, like, if this isn\u2019t the voice of the Creator saying that we ought to be working together, I don\u2019t know what it is,\u201d Budd recalled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the 14 years since their first meeting, the duo has co-authored close to 20 books, with more to be released in 2026. Their published titles, such as Raven Brings the Light<\/i> (2013), Cloudwalker <\/i>(2014), Orca Chief<\/i> (2015) and Peace Dancer <\/i>(2016), have sold well and brought home awards.<\/p>\n The two have also put together board books for children featuring Vickers\u2019 artwork: Hello Humpback! <\/i>(2017), One Eagle Soaring<\/i> (2018) and Sockeye Silver, Saltchuck Blue<\/i> (2019). In 2026, Harbour Publishing will be releasing Summer Brings Berries<\/i>, a board book using rhyming text and colourful imagery to explore and celebrate traditional foods of the West Coast.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, Budd and Vickers have two other books coming out next year: a children\u2019s colouring book and an art book celebrating Vickers\u2019 80th birthday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am an oral historian,\u201d said Budd. \u201cI work in the medium of storytelling, and he\u2019s one of the best storytellers I can imagine. We get on the phone and we start talking and, the next thing I know, 45 minutes or an hour has gone by, and he\u2019s told me a ton of different stories.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides his books, Vickers is recognized as a printmaker, painter, carver, designer, author and keynote speaker. Among his numerous accolades is a nomination for a Grammy Award in 2019 for his artwork on a box set of Grateful Dead recordings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sam Margolis <\/b>has written for the<\/i> Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Robert \u201cLucky\u201d Budd, left, and Roy Henry Vickers have co-authored close to 20 books together, with more to be released in 2026. (photo from \u201cLucky\u201d Budd) As oral historian Robert \u201cLucky\u201d Budd tells it, his collaboration with First Nations artist Roy Henry Vickers, which has produced several award-winning and bestselling books, was accurately summed up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[2466,974,4946,3076,2673,24539,24538],"class_list":["post-48159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-art","tag-books-2","tag-childrens-books","tag-education","tag-kids-books","tag-lucky-budd","tag-roy-vickers"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}