Exhibit pays tribute to early B.C. images
Exhibit plays tribute to a ‘skookum’ collection of early B.C. images, writes John Mackie.
On Nov. 25, 1915 the Chilean ship Carelmapu was caught in a storm off Long Beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
“After being battered about by a raging southwesterly gale, (the Carelmapu) was driven ashore on the jagged rocks at Schooner Cove,” reported the Vancouver World. “All hands went down to their death, clinging to the masts, spars and other parts of the ship. The C.P.R. steamer Princess Maquinna was close at hand, and in full view of the stricken men, ( but was) unable, due to the tremendous seas running, to render any assistance.”
One of the Maquinna’s crew had a camera, and snapped a photo of the Carelmapu going down. And it’s simply terrifying.
You can spot the ship’s masts, but they’re almost submerged under the giant swells in the water. The sea was so wild the photo is blurry, because the Maquinna was being tossed up and down.
No one knows who shot the photo. But a century later, it’s one of the gems on display at Nanitch, a monumental new photo exhibit at Presentation House in North Vancouver.
The print is among 18,000 images of B.C. collected over the years by Vancouver antique dealer Uno Langmann. Last year, Langmann donated his collection to UBC, which has been digitizing it.
The collection literally spans the history of the province, but the Presentation House show features photos taken between the 1860s to the 1920s.
“At a certain point we realized that the 18,000 images were (so) vast that it was impossible to look at every one,” said Helga Pakasaar, who put together the show with Heather Caverhill and Tania Willard.
“(So) we decided to just focus on the first 60 years. The collection goes on for another 60 years, at least.”
Many of the photos are of First Nations people, so the exhibit was given the Chinook title Nanitch, which means “to look.”
Chinook was a language used by First Nations and Europeans to communicate with each other during the 19th century.
“We thought it was a very evocative title in terms of referencing the cultural context in early British Columbia,” said Pakasaar.
“It came from many different languages, and was used actually until the turn of the century. In fact, some people still use some of the words from Chinook, like skookum.”
There are some well-known photos in the show, including a remarkably clear print of J.A. Brock, and H.T. Devine’s photo of the devastation after Vancouver’s Great Fire of June 13, 1886.
It’s a period print, probably executed shortly after the fire — it reads “copyright applied for” in the left corner.
But then, all the works in the show are period, whether they are albumen silver prints, gelatin silver prints, photogravures, carte de visites, cabinet cards, tintypes, stereoscopes, postcards or daguerreotypes.
The wide variety of print types is matched by a wide variety of images. Langmann wasn’t just interested in collecting photos by well-known photographers, he wanted any image he found interesting, or historically important.
Hence you get something like a well worn 1924 photo of shoemaker P.M. Smith at his shop on Lonsdale in North Van, annotated with the hand-written note “dad taught him shoe repairing business.”
There are pinholes on the matted sides of the print, and all sorts of scratches on the image, like somebody used it as a backing while they sliced up stuff on top. But it gives the photo a fantastic patina — it’s not just a cool image, it’s a unique artifact.
There are hundreds of them in the exhibition. A photo of the wreck of a CPR “ore train” in Phoenix, which is now a ghost town. A portrait of the mustachioed Quarles van Ufford brothers outside their floral shop on Main Street. A striking cabinet card of a First Nations man posing in traditional Kwajawaki’awakw costume at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
Most of the major photographers of early B.C. are included in the show, including Frederick Dally, Carlo Gentile, and Hannah and Richard Maynard. But the revelations in the exhibition are lesser-known photographers like Ben William Leeson, who set up shop at Quatsino Sound in 1895 and did a booklet he called The Vanishing Race on the local First Nations.
Leeson’s photos of “Quatsino native” Annie Rooney are the equal of the famous images of native Americans produced by American photographic legend Edward Curtis, whose photos are also in the show.
The most intriguing Curtis image is a blue-toned silver gelatin print Aphrodite (Siren of the Sea), a dreamy photo of a nude woman floating in water that Curtis took after he moved to Los Angeles in the 1920s.
Curtis spent several years working in Hollywood, which may explain why Aphrodite looks like a silent movie outtake.
Leeson’s most arresting photo also isn’t of a native — it’s a 1910 image of a logger standing in his hut by Alice Lake, surrounded by towering trees. It’s simple but stunning, a classic B.C. image.
On the flip side there’s Children on Big Stump, a wonderful 1890 print of 28 kids (and five adults) standing on top and in front of a giant stump. The albumen print has faded with time, and somebody has darkened part of the stump with black ink, but the image is a total killer.
Many early photos were turned into postcards, and Langmann collected some doozies, such as a hand-tinted photo of a native man named Meshk N’xetsi gold panning with his family on the Thompson River near Lytton in 1900. The original photo was by Archibald Murchie, and a print of it is placed beside the postcard.
Langmann saw value in both, and his collection reflects it.
Indeed. Nanitch is the best exhibition of early B.C. photos to hit the Vancouver area in years — maybe ever.