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the former, in the west, James B. Tyrell of the Geologi-
cal Survey took pictures of the prairies, and the forts,
aboriginal peoples, and settlers that occupied the area.
In 1881, Frank Jay Haynes, a photographer of American
railroads, was hired by the CPR to create photographs
to entice immigrants to the country. With the comple-
tion of the CPR in 1885, William Cornelius Van Horne,
then General Manager of the company, was especially
eager to provide free passage on the railway to artists
and photographers wishing to render views along the
route. Between 1887 and 1889, Notman’s son, William
MacFarlane Notman, traveled along the newly build
transcontinental railway to photograph scenes along
the route. In the mid-1880s, Alexander Henderson also
journeyed along the railway line, taking pictures of
scenic areas that would later be bought by the company
in order to encourage travel along the line. This was
not Henderson’s fi rst project along a railway route.
From 1872 to 1874 he had been hired by Sir Sandford
Fleming to take photographs along the Intercolonial
Railway Line, which linked, sometimes through al-
ready established lines, the Maritime provinces to the
St. Lawrence River near Quebec City. In 1886, Oliver
Buell took photographs along the western end of the
railway line, specializing in views one would see while
traveling along the route. The Canadian Pacifi c Railway
reproduced a number of his photographs in their adver-
tising literature, and included four works in its 1895
portfolio of photogravures entitled Glimpses Along the
Canadian Pacifi c Railway: Mountain Series. Buell used
his photographic views mainly for his “entertainments”
or stereopticon and lantern slide shows in which he
starred as the main narrator. He later traveled throughout
the east, taking numerous landscape photographs in the
Maritimes and New England states.
The public had access to photographic imagery not
only through commercial establishments and lantern
slide shows, but also through a number of technologi-
cal developments that occurred in the latter part of the
century. Dissemination of photographic imagery was
substantially increased when, in 1869, two Canadians,
William Augustus Leggo and George Edward Desbarats,
reproduced the fi rst letterpress halftone reproduction of
William Notman’s photographic portrait of HRH Prince
Arthur for the 30 October 1869 edition of the Canadian
Illustrated News. By the early 1880s, individuals could
take their own photographs with relative ease as a result
of improvements in dry plate photography. Amateur
involvement in the medium increased and photographic
societies and camera clubs became established across
the country, beginning with the Quebec Amateur Pho-
tographers’ Association in 1884. New types of cameras
were manufactured which took advantage of the “in-
stantaneous” photography the dry plate afforded. One
such device was the detective camera that was employed
by Captain James Peters of the Regiment of Canadian
Artillery to photograph the Riel Rebellion of 1885.
The Arctic, a place of continued fascination for
scientists, explorers and artists, fi rst saw the appear-
ance of photography in the early 1850s. Photographs
were made during expeditions sent out in search of Sir
John Franklin, and it is possible that the medium was
included in the Sir John Richardson search expedition
of 1847–49. William Henry Fox Talbot had donated a
calotype apparatus to the expedition, but it is unknown
whether or not the equipment ever left England. It is
known, however, that attempts were made to produce
daguerreotypes during Dr. Elisha Kent Kane’s 1853
rescue expedition, which journeyed in the area north
of Smith Sound. Francis Leopold McClintock suc-
cessfully created calotypes in 1854 on Beechey Island
as part of the Edward Belcher expedition. Two years
later, McClintock headed his own expedition funded
by Lady Franklin, which was successful in discovering
the fate of the noted explorer. For the expedition, Dr.
David Walker, who had been hired as surgeon and of-
fi cial photographer, used the wet collodion method to
produce photographs of the Baffi n Bay area. In 1869,
William Bradford, artist, organized a cruise to the Arctic
and employed two photographers, John Dunmore and
George Critcherson of Boston to take photographs of
areas visited. One hundred thirty fi ve of these photo-
graphs were included in Bradford’s 1873 publication,
The Arctic Regions. Sir Allen Young headed north by
steamer in 1875 along with George de Wilde, artist
and photographer, some of whose work was used in
the 1876 publication Cruise of the ‘Pandora.’ Young
made a second trip that same year with William Grant as
photographer. The British polar expedition of 1875/76,
headed by Sir George Strong Nares, engaged two ships
each supplied with a photographer, George White and
Thomas Mitchell. In 1876, the expedition made a failed
attempt to reach the pole, which, nonetheless resulted in
the production of one hundred twenty one photographs.
In 1884, the Canadian government committed expedi-
tions to Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait, mainly for the
reason of investigating the navigability of the waters.
Robert Bell of the Geological Survey of Canada took
photographs in the area from 1884 to 1885. Albert P.
Low, another employee of the Survey, photographed in
the Ungava Bay, northern Labrador, and Hudson Bay
areas throughout the 1890s. Graham Drinkwater also
produced views of Hudson Bay and Strait in 1897 while
engaged on the William Wakeham expedition. By the
end of the nineteenth century, photography had proved
its usefulness to scientists and government offi cials who
would continue to employ the medium in the following
century as a means to establish Canadian presence, and
thus sovereignty in the north.
Andrea Kunard