Dr. Jonathan Swainger joined UNBC in August 1992 and has lived and taught in Terrace, Fort St. John and Prince George. He was the History Department Chair from 2004 to 2009 and his teaching includes Canadian, legal, crime, and historiography.

His books and edited collections include The Canadian Department of Justice and the Completion of Confederation (2000), The Alberta Supreme Court at 100: History and Authority (2007), Laws and Societies in the Prairie West, 1670-1940 (2005) with Louis A. Knafla, and People and Place: Historical Influences on Legal Culture (2003) with Constance Backhouse. Dr. Swainger has also authored a book-length history of the grassroots campaign to establish what eventually became the University of Northern British Columbia in the province’s northern interior. Aspiration: A History of the University of Northern British Columbia to 2015 explores the public campaign and the institution’s early success, disappointments, and future challenges.

His most recent book, The Notorious Georges: Crime and Community Identity in Northern British Columbia was released by UBC Press and the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History in the autumn of 2023. Centred on the connection between community identity, policing, locals politics and crime, the book explores the origins of the Georges’—South Fort George, Fort George, and Prince George—bad reputations. Not only were the communities' rough and tumble reputations not the work of bad lads who spent too much time in the Northern Hotel bar, but the evidence suggests that this notoriety casts light on a longer and deeper legacy of a region that feels ignored, misunderstood, and dismissed by decision-makers elsewhere in the province and nation.