Framing the west: Race, gender and the photographic 'frontier' on the northwest coast, 1858--1912

On Canada's northwest coast photography was not an innocent practise but one intrinsic to the British origins of territorial expansion and settlement. In 1859 the camera was recruited as a "modern" apparatus to survey the physical topography and geology of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. These ventures included the representation of individual Indians from indigenous populations residing near Hudson Bay Company trading forts. Beginning in 1866 government representatives, which after 1873 included the regional superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs, regularly hired commercial photographers to accompany the tours of investigation to northwest coastal villages of the Coast Salish, Kwakwaka'wakw, Tshimshian and Haida.; Indian missionaries of all denominations made use of photography: as a instrument of pedagogy and to illustrate their descriptions of "before and after" conversion. These latter images were presented to outside audiences to solicit ongoing financial support for evangelical and educational campaigns among the Indians. Honorific depictions of individual Aboriginal converts also became popular.; Studio portraiture which depicted the prosperity and social mobility of individual settlers and their families was another realm of profit for urban commercial photographers. Beginning in 1881 one of the earliest female professional photographers in the region developed a series of photomontages cartes-de-visites in which faces of babies and children were decoratively arranged. Two of the "Gems of British Columbia" by Hannah Maynard subsequently were reproduced in the St. Louis Photographer and were popular among female consumers as they were a pictorial affirmation of the reproductive labour of those entrusted with the task of populating the frontier.; By 1895 Aboriginal people began to frequent commercial studios as clients resulting in depictions of Indians as prosperous and modern, a striking counterpoint to earlier imagery and negative attitudes among settlers. Moreover, photography was incorporated into ceremonial and commemorative practices by the Coast Salish, Northern Straits Salish and the Nuu-chah-nulth.; Using historical photographs alongside diaries, oral histories, criminal records, missionary journals and travel accounts this research explores the importance of photography across official, commercial, scholarly and private domains to unravel the politics of representing the frontier.