Faces of British Columbia: Looking at the Past 1860-1960

Charlene Porsild is an assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser
University.

This collection of 150 previously unpublished photographs from the
Provincial Archives of British Columbia is not intended as a
photo-essay—indeed, many of the images are seemingly unrelated and
there is very little text—but rather as an “album” of B.C.
history.

While some of the book’s images are delightful, the photographs and
their captions often raise more questions than they answer. For example,
in an image of a prosperous Yale family in the early 1880s, we see a
Chinese servant standing in the shadow of the house observing the family
from afar; the caption makes no reference to him, nor does it explain
that the practice of employing Chinese and Japanese house servants was
common among upper- and middle-class British Columbians in the period.
In another photograph, a Native man poses with a trumpet at Bella Coola
in 1874; the caption makes reference to the photographer and to the
Hudson’s Bay Company post, but not to the subject of the photograph
itself. Such oversights are frustrating and disappointing.

The organization of photographs is also curious: the chapters are in
chronological order, but there is little logic in the sequence of the
photographs. For example, the authors have placed an image of Alert Bay
villagers opposite a studio portrait of an African-American couple.
Another pair of images places sled dogs and drivers on the Skeena River
opposite a farmer driving a motorcar loaded with hay in Vancouver. A
photo of Armistice Celebrations in Victoria faces a portrait of a tiny
rail stop on the Great Eastern line at D’Arcy. An image of men loading
packs onto horses for the mines is opposite a portrait of girls at St.
Mary’s private school in Victoria. The authors do not interpret the
information within these images, nor do they explain how they fit
together.

Faces of British Columbia will appeal to those who like looking at old
photographs and can fill in the history for themselves, as well as to
academic historians, who willappreciate these interesting photographs
for the sake of the photos alone.