The Newsroom
Sea of Islands and Carol E. Mayer awarded 2026 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize
Figure 1 is proud to announce that Carol E. Mayer has won the Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia for her book Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories, and Memories from Oceania. The $3,500 prize, given by UBC Library and the Pacific BookWorld News Society, will be awarded at a reception to be held in April.
Published in partnership with the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Sea of Islands is a study of the stories and journeys of cultural belongings within Canada’s largest Oceanic collection, housed at MOA. Totalling some 3,500 objects, the collection is Canada’s largest and most diverse accumulation from the vast region of Oceania, which includes the large land bodies of Australia and Papua New Guinea.
“This book is a wonderfully collaborative study that explores how this vast collection at MOA has evolved, and draws focus to the many stories contained within,” says Dr. Susan E. Parker, UBC’s University Librarian in a news release. “We are honoured to present Carol E. Mayer with this year’s Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize.”
Carol E. Mayer is the Research Fellow—Pacific at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology. Internationally known for her work as a museum curator, she has published widely on museum-related topics, curated more than forty exhibitions, and received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution and the Sainsbury Research Unit and numerous awards.
This marks the second year in a row that a Figure 1 title was awarded the prize, with To See What He Saw: J.E.H. MacDonald and the O’Hara Years, 1924—1932, by Stanley Munn and Patricia Cucman, receiving it in 2025.
Congratulations, Carol!