Tag Archives: Geological Survey of Canada

Don’t take it for granite: Geological Survey of Canada photographs

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By Martha Sellens

Several years ago, I was contacted by a researcher who was looking for the first photograph taken on a Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) survey expedition. They knew that the photograph was held by Library and Archives Canada (LAC), but they were having trouble finding it. At the time, I knew only a little about the GSC records that LAC holds. When I started looking into the GSC photograph collection, I immediately understood why the researcher was having difficulties. There was a lot of information about the collection, but not all of it was available to the public on our website, and what was available was difficult to navigate.

With a bit of digging and a few false starts, I was able to find the first photograph and a few others that the researcher was looking for. Together, we examined the glass plate negatives and fragile photograph albums at LAC’s Preservation Centre in Gatineau (fragile materials like these don’t travel from the storage site).

I was hooked. The GSC photograph collection has a huge variety of photographs taken across Canada as part of survey expeditions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Yes, there are many photographs of rocks, as is only fitting for geologists, but there are also photographs of landscape views, Indigenous peoples, wildlife, European settlements, Chinese immigrants and the Canadian Pacific Railway, as well as other subjects.

The first GSC photograph was taken in 1860 by James Richardson on his expedition along the north shore of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence to the Strait of Belle Isle. It shows one of the expedition members sitting on a ridge of rock. The GSC photograph collection is numbered sequentially, and the photographs that Richardson and his assistant, Mr. Reeves, took on this expedition have GSC negative numbers between 1 and 28. At LAC, we have some of the original glass plate negatives as well as prints of the photographs.

A black-and-white photograph of a man sitting on a ridge of rock.

GSC Negative 1, James Richardson, 1860, taken on his expedition to Quebec and Labrador (a038063)

After finding those photographs and learning more about the GSC photograph collection, I was determined to improve their description so that more people could make use of them. But how? The majority of these photographs were transferred to the archives in the 1970s, long before our current computer systems and databases were in use. Many of my predecessors have worked to improve the description of the collection over the years, and it was frustrating to see that their efforts could no longer be accessed or understood by the public for technical reasons.

A black-and-white photograph of a train engine that has fallen on its side in a river. Workers are visible on raised train tracks. The background includes trees and mountains.

Grand Trunk Pacific Engine No. 6 derailed at Fiddle Creek, Alberta, D.B. Dowling, 1911, GSC negative number 18883 (a045437)

My first step was to review the existing information that we had about the collection. The GSC photograph collection includes nearly 30,000 photographs. The existing finding aid provided online was a 150-page PDF that compiled a report, a box list, and a number of original captions in one giant document. In the late 1990s, LAC staff also created a dedicated database to make it easier to find individual prints and negatives. However, that database was never available online. Another issue was that it had to be migrated into a new software format in 2016, and some of the functionality was lost.

A black-and-white photograph of eight surveyors sitting to the left of a campfire.

Camp fire group, D.B. Dowling, 1911, GSC negative number 18916 (a045420)

Analyzing and comparing all of this data became one of my work-from-home pandemic projects. Given the scale of the collection, I wasn’t able to do this work on an item-by-item level. Instead, I focused on two aspects of the collection: the photograph albums and the finding aids.

When I started, only two of the 78 photograph albums were described in our database. Now, each photograph album is described in LAC’s online database with information about the photographer, the geographic locations, the dates, the relevant GSC expedition, and the negative numbers assigned to the photographs by the GSC. I was also able to sort many descriptions of individual photographs into the albums where they are found.

A black-and-white photograph of a square-rigged sailing ship with three masts surrounded by ice. A person stands on the ice to the left of the stern.

S.S. “Diana” with rudder crushed in ice off Big Island, Hudson Strait, A.P. Low, 1897, GSC negative number 2198 (a038232)

When it was available, I also included information about the GSC survey expedition depicted in each album, and I provided a reference to the original field notebooks also in the collection at LAC (see R214-65-1-E). James Richardson’s field notes (Québec – Manitou River and Île des Esquimaux regions and locations on Newfoundland) even discuss when he or his assistant took photographs!

I also created new finding aids by consolidating information from three or four different sources, so that researchers and archivists didn’t have to check multiple locations to learn everything. Through this process, I was also able to identify inconsistencies and errors, to ensure that the information was as up to date as possible.

A black-and-white photograph of a landscape view. A calm river runs through the middle of the photograph with trees on either side. A person is visible on the rocky shore in the middle distance.

Brokenhead River, Manitoba, at lowest rapids, J.B. Tyrrell, September 29, 1891 (a051459)

Now, if you’re looking for a photograph in the GSC collection, you can check one of several new finding aids that I created to find negatives (Finding Aid 45-36 Geological Survey of Canada Negatives), albums (Finding Aid 45-36 Geological Survey of Canada Albums) or prints (Finding Aid 45-36 Geological Survey of Canada Prints). The listings are not complete, but they provide information about nearly half of the photographs in the collection, and the updated format is easier to read and search. Most of the photographs in this collection are identified using a GSC negative number, like James Richardson’s GSC Negative 1. Sometimes we have both the original negative as well as one or more prints of the same image. For others, only the negative or a print have survived.

A black-and-white photograph of sled dogs in harnesses and people in parkas. There are snow-covered trees in the background.

Dogs resting near Split Lake, Northwest Territories, J.M. Macoun, 1910, GSC negative number 14917 (a045274)

LAC also has many of the original catalogue cards that the GSC used to organize negatives in their photograph library. The cards often include the GSC negative number, photographer, date, location, and caption. Sometimes the cards will also mention if the negatives were damaged or broken. Portions of the cards are organized by location, subject, or negative number, so they can be used in different ways to find specific photographs. However, since the cards were created by the GSC, they don’t have LAC container information listed on them. These cards need to be used with the other finding aids to locate each item. But they are also useful for contextual information that we haven’t yet been able to add to LAC’s database. If you have found an interesting photograph, and want to know more, you can check the catalogue cards to see if they have any further information there.

My work on improving the GSC collection is far from over, but I hope that the new finding aids and descriptions will help more people to explore this fascinating collection.

Additional resources

  • Geological Survey of Canada Photographs (R214-419-X-E)
  • Photograph album: Quebec and Labrador 1860, James Richardson (R214-2999-9-E)

Martha Sellens is an archivist in the Government Archives Division at Library and Archives Canada.

Mountains of Blackflies

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By Martha Sellens

One of my favourite parts of being an archivist is solving archival mysteries, especially when they result in something unexpected. One of my recent mysteries took me from a piece of artwork to blackflies—and I’m not talking about an unexpected (and unwanted!) visitor in the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) archival vault.

It all started with a couple of prints from the Geological Survey of Canada. I was working on improving their description in our database so that people could find them. (These are the improved descriptions for item 5067117 and item 5067118.) The prints were from 1883 and had been acquired by the archives so long ago—before 1925!—that there wasn’t much information about them in our records.

So I started digging. The prints were panoramas, nearly an arm-span wide and as tall as a trade paperback book. Both were prints of the same drawing showing the view of the Notre-Dame or Shickshock (now known as Chic-Chocs) Mountains in Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. To make things easier, they also had a title, artist and printing house included in the print image, so I was immediately able to link it back to A.P. Low’s report on his 1883 expedition for the Geological Survey.

Black and white print of a drawing depicting a series of rounded mountains. There are trees and grass in the foreground. The print is titled and has some small labels along the top edge indicating cardinal directions.

Panoramic photolithographic print of the Notre-Dame or Chic-Chocs (Shickshock) Mountains in Gaspé Peninsula, Quebec. Drawn by L. Lambe from a sketch by A.P. Low, to accompany A.P. Low’s 1883 report to the Geological Survey of Canada. The prints in LAC’s collection (R214-2887-9) are not yet digitized. Image courtesy of NRCan (GEOSCAN).

A.P. Low led a small team of surveyors into the interior of the Gaspé Peninsula in the summer of 1883 to examine the geology of the area, as well as to create and improve maps of the region. The Geological Survey of Canada was often one of the first groups of surveyors in an area and they quickly realized that they couldn’t document geological features without creating maps as well. Low’s report describes some of their day-to-day tasks as well as their scientific findings. It was published as part of an 800-page volume with all of the Geological Survey field reports from 1882–84. You can download a digitized version from the Natural Resources Canada website or consult the physical book in LAC’s library holdings.

LAC also holds many of the field books from these surveys. These are the notebooks the surveyors used in the field to keep track of their daily findings. With my curiosity piqued, I ordered in A.P. Low’s notebooks to take a look. I’m not a geologist so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to understand his notes, but that’s half the fun! Most of the notebooks were filled with numbers and quick sketches, but in the back of one, I hit the jackpot.

Most people expect government records to be bureaucratic and boring—and many of our records live down to these expectations—but it’s so exciting when you find something that proves that even the work lives of nineteenth-century public servants could be funny and interesting.

In the back of one of A.P. Low’s field books, I found the pencil sketch he drew of the Chic-Chocs (Shickshock) Mountains. The very one that they used to create the final drawing that accompanied his report and in the prints that started my current investigation. It’s a fairly simple pencil drawing, spread over two lined pages in the back of the book, but the shading and the line work starts to trail off somewhere in the middle.

Why did he stop? Fortunately for us, he wrote down the reason: “Unable to finish on account of the Black Flies!” His comment is accompanied by a suspicious smudge and three little blackflies doodled near the description of his sketch.

Photograph of a red leather notebook, open on page 98. The pages are lined and there is a pencil drawing of some mountains and three small flies. A note at the bottom reads, “Sketch of some of the Mountains seen from Mount Albert looking North.” To the right another note reads, “Unable to finish on account of the Black Flies.”

Sketch of the Chic-Chocs (Shickshock) Mountains on page 98 of A.P. Low’s field book #2276, Gaspé Peninsula, Quebec. Geological Survey of Canada (RG45 Vol 142). Photo by Martha Sellens.

I can just picture the surveyors baking in the June sun on the top of a Quebec mountain and cursing one of Canada’s most annoying predators. It can be easy to forget that behind every record—even the bureaucratic and boring ones—are the people that worked together to create it. This notebook, and the more formal prints that led me there, is a great reminder of the people—and blackflies—behind the records.

Other LAC related resources:

Martha Sellens is an archivist for the natural resources portfolio in the Government Archives Division at Library and Archives Canada.

Guest Curator: Andrea Kunard

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Banner for the guest curator series. CANADA 150 is in red along the left side of the banner and then the bilingual text: Canada: Who Do We Think We Are? and under that text is Guest curator series.Canada: Who Do We Think We Are? is a new exhibition by Library and Archives Canada (LAC) marking the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation. This exhibition is accompanied by a year-long blog series.

Join us every month during 2017 as experts, from LAC, across Canada and even farther afield, provide additional insights on items from the exhibition. Each “guest curator” discusses one item, then adds another to the exhibition—virtually.

Be sure to visit Canada: Who Do We Think We Are? at 395 Wellington Street in Ottawa between June 5, 2017, and March 1, 2018. Admission is free.

Entrance to Blacklead Island, Cumberland Gulf, Baffin Island, Northwest Territories (present-day Nunavut) by Albert Peter Low, 1903–1904.

Black-and-white panorama of a large iceberg close to a rocky island shot from a boat.

Entrance to Blacklead Island, Cumberland Gulf, Baffin Island, Northwest Territories (present-day Nunavut) by Albert Peter Low, 1903–1904. (MIKAN 3203732)

Canada claimed sovereignty of its Arctic territory in 1904: the law moved north and surveyors catalogued the land. This act reinforced old ideas on identity. It defined Canada, all over again, as a northern nation.

Tell us about yourself

When I first started doing historical research in photography during my master’s program at Carleton University, I practically lived at Library and Archives Canada. The collection is fantastic, and it was the most amazing experience for me to be looking at photographs taken over a 150 years ago. Since then I have continued to research historical photographs, as well as acting as curator for contemporary photography at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and now the National Gallery of Canada. I have always been interested in exploration photography, or government uses of the medium. The Humphrey Lloyd Hime photographs are particularly interesting in that they are the first known paper photographs made of the North American interior. The camera was a tool for various interests, but it also was a way to encapsulate many preoccupations of the period, especially the shifts that occurred in religion because of scientific discoveries. Many so-called objective photographs made at this time also reflect spiritual beliefs and morality. As well, Western aesthetic values play a part in communicating ideals and the best photographers of the period, such as Alexander Henderson, are highly adept at manipulating tone, line, shape and texture to merge the sublimity of the landscape with the period’s fervent faith in scientific and technological progress.

Is there anything else about this item that you feel Canadians should know?

Although this photograph presents a barren and seemingly empty landscape, the area was anything but inactive. Albert Peter Low (1861–1942), a senior Geological Survey of Canada officer, took this photograph of the entrance to Blacklead Island during a Canadian government funded expedition in 1903–04. He published an account of his journey in his famous book, The Cruise of the Neptune. Historically, Blacklead Island was an important whaling station, but at the time of Low’s expedition, whale stocks had nearly all but vanished in the area. As well, whaling stations had radically changed Inuit lifestyle, hunting cycles, and economies. The purpose of Low’s expedition was to establish Canadian sovereignty in the north through proclamations and rule of law. Low’s photograph, however, reveals nothing of this political agenda. Rather he presents a peaceful view, taking advantage of the panorama’s extended format and classic elements of the sublime. The iceberg appears gargantuan and overwhelming, alluring in its whiteness. The island, in contrast, is dark and more detailed. The two subjects, ice and rock, appear held in opposition, suspended between a cloudless sky and a rippling, frigid sea.

Tell us about another related item that you would like to add to the exhibition.

Sepia-toned image of prairie grass stretching to meet the sky with a skull and a bone in the foreground.

The Prairie Looking West by Humphrey Lloyd Hime, 1858 (MIKAN 3243322)

Humphrey Lloyd Hime’s The Prairie Facing West (1858) is one of most enigmatic images in the history of Canadian photography. It depicts an austere landscape in which a human skull and (human?) bone appear. The photograph was taken near the Red River settlement, now the city of Winnipeg. Hime was working for the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition sent by the government to assess the agricultural potential of the area, and its suitability for settlement. He depicts the land as empty, ostensibly awaiting human occupation. However, the presence of the skull is provocative. Most likely, Hime staged the photograph using the skull of an Aboriginal woman he had found earlier in an area of southern Manitoba. As he wrote in his diary on June 28, 1858, “…found a skull close to grave on prairie—it was all pulled about by wolves—kept the skull.…” This encounter informs the image in numerous ways. The photograph may represent Hime’s recreation of his experience, or be a way to incite drama into an otherwise nondescript landscape. The appearance of the skull is also tied to the fascination of 19th-century society with Indigenous methods of burial. However, as the caption does not state that the skull belonged to a native person, viewers might anxiously interpret the land as containing the possibility of their own death and hardship. At this point, the interior of the country was largely unknown, with many thinking it contained a wasteland of Biblical proportions.

Biography

A colour photograph of a woman wearing glasses looking directly at the viewerAndrea Kunard is an Associate Curator of Photographs at the National Gallery of Canada. She has presented several group and monographic exhibitions on contemporary photography including Shifting Sites (2000), Susan McEachern: Structures of Meaning (2004), Steeling the Gaze (2008), Scott McFarland: A Cultivated View (2009), Fred Herzog (2011), Clash: Conflict and Its Consequences (2012), and Michel Campeau: Icons of Obsolescence (2013). She is presently co-curating a major retrospective on Newfoundland-based artist Marlene Creates as well as a survey exhibition Photography in Canada: 1960–2000 for 2017. She has taught the history of photography, Canadian art and cultural theory at Carleton and Queen’s University. In addition, she co-edited The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. She has lectured on photography throughout Canada, and written articles on contemporary and historical photography in a variety of publications including The Journal of Canadian Art History, the International Journal of Canadian Studies, Early Popular Visual Culture, Muse, BlackFlash, and ETC Montréal. She is currently working on a major web-based project on documentary photography that centres on the National Film Board Still Photography Division collection at the National Gallery and Library and Archives Canada.