264
landscape views. Charles Gentille was active in British
Columbia between 1863 and 1866, taking carte-de-
visite views of the Leech River gold rush of 1864, and
landscape photographs of the Cariboo area a year later.
In 1866, Frederick Dally opened a photographic studio
in Victoria. That same year, he accompanied Vancou-
ver Island Governor Arthur Kennedy on a trip around
Vancouver Island where he obtained photographs of
aboriginal villages and peoples and collected aboriginal
artifacts. His best known works were produced between
1867–68 when he photographed the lives of gold miners
along the Cariboo Road, many of which were repro-
duced for the pictorial press.
In the prairie provinces, Joseph Langevin opened his
Photographic Gallery in Winnipeg in 1864. He was the
fi rst known photographer in the west to take carte-de-
visite portraits. Nearly two decades later, in the same
city, Rossetta E. Carr opened the American Art Gallery, a
highly successful studio that specialized in the children’s
portraits. In the 1890s, Geraldine Moodie began her
photographic career, taking pictures of the Cree Indians
living near Battleford, Saskatchewan. Moodie is best
known for her portraits of Inuit peoples taken while her
husband was stationed in the Arctic from 1904-06, and
in Dawson, Yukon from 1912–15. In Calgary, William
Hanson Boorne, along with his cousin Ernest May, es-
tablished a photography studio in 1886, and another in
Edmonton in 1891. Boorne’s most noted photographs
are of the Blood Indian Sun Dance ceremony taken in
1887 and 1888 for which he received a gold medal in
the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The fi rm also built up a
collection of scenes from across Canada that they sold
to both workers and visitors along the newly constructed
railway line.
The period’s best-known amateur works were pro-
duced by Alexander Henderson of Montreal who created
a number of artistic landscape views that he bound to-
gether and published as Canadian Views and Studies by
an Amateur in 1865. Subsequent editions were titled dif-
ferently and appear to have been personally assembled
to suit the needs of the recipient. For those stationed in
remote areas of the country, photography proved to be
an important pastime, as well as a way of contributing
to scientifi c pursuits. In the 1860s, Bernard Rogan Ross,
a Fellow of the Anthropological Society of London,
photographed the aboriginal peoples of the Mackenzie
River District and the inhabitants and activities at Rupert
House, a Hudson’s Bay Co. trading post near James Bay.
Moose Factory, located on the opposite side of the bay,
also saw much amateur activity. From 1864 to 1869,
Charles Horetzky produced a number of views of the
area, perhaps learning the medium from Ross. In the
1870s, Horetzky joined the Canadian Pacifi c Railway
survey teams under the direction of Sir Sandford Flem-
ing, taking photographs of various routes proposed for
the transcontinental railway. Another individual who
became interested in photography while stationed at
Moose Factory was James Cotter. He took numerous
photographs of the Inuit, igloo building and kayaks, as
well as landscape views some of which were reproduced
in The Illustrated London News. George Simpson Mc-
Tavish also photographed aspects of life in the north, as
well as the hunting activities of the Inuit.
Surveyors and explorers hired by both British and
Canadian Governments used photography to docu-
ment their activities, and provide views of the largely
unknown interior and its aboriginal peoples. Between
1858 and 1862, a corps of Royal Engineers was assigned
to mark the boundary of the 49th parallel, or the border
between the United States and Canada. Twenty-three
photographs were taken around Victoria and Esquimalt
between 1859 and 1860, and eighty-one were produced
in the fi eld between 1860 and 1861. The Royal Engi-
neers continued their boundary survey in the 1870s.
One set of photographs was used as evidence to settle a
boundary dispute between Canada and the United States
at the North West Angle of the Lake of the Woods in- Other images depict the interior of the country, the
surveying activities of the Engineers, and subject matter
of particular fascination for Victorians such as views of
aboriginal graves, burial sites, and the remains of ab-
originals killed in tribal skirmishes. In 1871, Benjamin
Baltzly, an employee of William Notman’s fi rm, accom-
panied the Geological Survey of Canada expedition into
the interior of British Columbia. Notman retained the
negatives and sold the photographs through his studios.
Such views were a novelty, as individuals living in the
east knew little of the west and were curious about the
area and the type of landscape found there.
George Mercer Dawson, a geologist with the Geo-
logical Survey, also took photographs in British Co-
lumbia during the 1870s and 1880s. Some of his most
important historic and ethnographic pictures were taken
of the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands,
which included views of their dwellings and totem poles.
Edward Dossetter produced another important set of
photographs of this area in 1881. The Canada-Alaska
boundary, and topographical surveys of the west were
achieved through photogrammetry, a photographic sur-
veying technique which the Surveyor-General, Edouard
Deville, employed on a large scale and for which he
gained an international reputation. Views of Yukon and
Dawson City were taken by William Ogilvie in 1895 and
1896, and depict the north prior to the immense increase
in both population and mining activities that occurred
as a result of the Klondike gold rush.
Photographs generated by the Geological Survey,
and other government projects, were used by the Ca-
nadian government and the Canadian Pacifi c Railway
Company (CPR) to encourage immigration. In terms of