It is now fifty years from 1967, the year of Canada's centenary and of the publication of DCHP-1. That this book was published at all was due to the generosity of some institutions (Canada Council, the Universities of Calgary and Victoria, and W.J. Gage Limited, later Gage Publishing and now sadly defunct) and to the determination and persistence of certain individuals. The origins of the dictionary lay in four collections of citations that had been assembled over a number of years by Charles Lovell, an American lexicographer, Douglas Leechman, an anthropologist specializing in the study of Canada's Native Peoples; Charles Crate, a teacher from Quesnel BC, who had spent much of his life in the Canadian north; and Walter Avis, Professor of English at Royal Military College, who had gathered material for a series of articles in the Journal of the Canadian Linguistic Association on language variation along the Canadian-US border. This mass of materials was brought together by the Canadian Lexicographical Centre, which was established by the Canadian Linguistic Association and chaired by M.H. Scargill, who was Professor of English at the University of Calgary and from 1964 Head of Linguistics and later Chairman of Graduate Studies at the University of Victoria. Many volunteer readers contributed to a growing fifth corpus at the Centre. This was in a pre-digital age, and each quotation was transcribed onto a six by four-inch citation slip. Some of the collections included newspapers, magazines, and even books where citations had been marked up but not yet put onto slips.

Imagine tens of thousands of citation slips, each with a quotation, possibly a gloss, and a bibliographic reference, arranged either alphabetically or by topic. Other slips were used for definitions and editor's notes. The slips of the Lovell collection alone filled almost fifty shoe boxes. The processing and merging of the slips was done by Walter Avis during a sabbatical in 1963-64 and during the summer of 1965, assisted by Charles Crate. During the ensuing two years Avis, working assiduously and persistently and sometimes seeking help or corroboration from the other editors, finished compiling the dictionary, selecting citations and using them as a basis for definitions, then writing etymologies, labels, and fistnotes. The material was finally sent to the publisher, checked by me, and passed on for typesetting and printing. Working closely with Avis, as I did for several years, was both a joy and a privilege.

In his introduction to the dictionary Avis appealed for further information and citations. "In this way," he wrote, "through our combined efforts, an improved second edition will be assured." Now at last it is here. As, alas, the only survivor of the original editorial board, I congratulate Stefan Dollinger, Margery Fee, and their assistants on their great achievement. I am enormously impressed by the extensive scope of the new book and by the sophistication of the labelling, symbols, Word Stories, and other aids to the reader. It is breaking new lexicographical ground, and a great deal of thought has gone into deciding how to make the best use of the digital presentation. I welcome this new dictionary and wish it every success in every way.

Foreword by John Considine, Professor of English, University of Alberta