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A talk by her son, Michael Barkham who is also an historian, and a guided visited of the Archive of Protocols in Oñati allows her legacy to be better known.  The Canadian researcher that settled in Oñati in 1972 is currently 89 years old and will be honored this afternoon at the University of Sancti Spiritus.  This article appeared in the Diario Vasco written by Marian Gonzalez. 

Marian Gonzalez / Oñati, Gipuzkoa.  A scholarship that the town hall will institute this year to develop historical research projects from the gender perspective, will carry the name of a researcher with international fame in maritime history in the Basque Country and Canada. Huxley lived for many years in Oñati and will be honored and thanked today by the town hall for her work.

Selma Huxley is a woman who took new historical directions and like the Basque mariners, she weathered wind and storms.  The fact that she was widowed at the age of 37 with four children under the age of 10, didn’t keep her from dedicating herself to her passion: research, and moving with her family, first to Mexico, then on to Bilbao (she learned paleography at the University of Deusto), and finally to Oñati, to carry out, without institutional support, passionate research that is now history.

She settled in Oñati in 1972, with her children and enthusiasm, nestled in the thousands of documents in the Archive of Protocols of Gipuzkoa, she discovered a historical heritage common to Canada and Euskadi.  Without this, the Red Bay today would be a small Canadian fishing pot, situated in the frigid waters of the Labrador coast, instead of being the Unesco World Heritage.

She found documents that tell the story of Basque cod fishermen and whalers in Newfoundland, especially in the 16th century.  She discovered the existence of the Basque whaling industry in Red Bay, Labrador, its whaling ports, archeological remains of their bases, as well as the presence of Basque galleons that had sunk in those ports, including the San Juan (1565).

The archives revealed to Huxley three singular manuscripts of this century written on that coast: the sale of txalupas (1572) and two Wills (1577 and 1584) that became the oldest civil documents written in Canada. Selma realized, from this documentation, that there had to be remains of the Basque whaling, on land, as well as underwater.  And so, supported by her research she organized an archeologic expedition to the south of Labrador in the summer of 1977.  She explored several ports along the coast and discovered archeological remains of the Basque whaling bases, including at Red Bay that validated her theory.

The effort that this historian and researcher put forth, was rewarded with the important discoveries in Canada and the Basque Country.  The Basque Government awarded her the “Lagun Onari,” one of the highest honors conceded by the autonomous executive.  The Canadian government awarded her the “Order of Canada,” in both cases for contributing to better understanding a virtually unknown period of history.

Selma Huxley got to know Euskadi, thanks to her husband, Brian Barkham, an architect who loved the Basque Country and who wrote a thesis on Basque farmhouses.  During one of their visits, a priest told them the story of whalers.  To Huxley, who had worked at the Arctic Institute at the University of McGill in Montreal, it was a total revelation.  Thousands of documents that were never studied before the archives in Euskadi and the later findings in Red Bay confirmed her good sense of smell that changed the history of Canada.

Oñati, and more specifically the Archive of Protocols of Gipuzkoa, had a lot to do with that, and the town hall wanted to take advantage of the historian’s presence at the ancient university to pay tribute to her and announce the scholarship for historic research from a gender perspective, that is in her name.

Talk and guided tour

Huxley being in Oñati is part of a very special event that is part of the “Book Day,” organized by the Office of Tourism in collaboration with the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa, the Historic Archives of Protocol of Gipuzkoa, and the municipal library.  At 7pm, her son, who is also an historian, Michael Barkham, who lives in San Sebastian and who accompanied her on her expedition in 1977 when he was 18, will talk about the Basques in Newfoundland and the Archive of Protocols of Gipuzkoa in his talk entitled “Selma Huxley, a Canadian in Oñati: Discovering the Basque Fisheries of Newfoundland (SCVI).” After the presentation, the town hall will pay tribute to the 89 year old historian.

On Sunday, the stage will be where Selma spent so many hours, at the Archive of Protocols of Gipuzkoa.  The Office of Tourism has organized a guided free tour, but you must RSVP under the title “The Sea of Literature and Basque History.”  Ramon Martin, director of the Archives, and Jose Antonio Azpiazu, historian and anthropologist, will be there beginning at 11am, to present visitors this treasure of documents, that guard the details fo the life of these Basques from the 16th century to 1915, its value and how it is currently used.

 (article published in El Diario Vasco)