A blog post published here a few days ago featured an 1889 photo of Calgary, taken by William McFarlane Notman. It generated a considerable amount of interest. The photographer was the son of William Notman, the most important Canadian photographer of the 19th century.
From 1884 to 1909, William McFarlane Notman made eight trips to western Canada to take photos along the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), documenting the early growth of towns and capturing dramatic views of the Rockies and Selkirks. The railway supplied him with a rail car equipped with a darkroom.
The University of British Columbia Library has digitized an 1887 album, called Views on C.P.R.: Winnipeg to Vancouver 1887, of 60 photos by William McFarlane Notman that document travel between Winnipeg and Vancouver along the CPR line.
Read details about each photo in the Page Metadata. Image: Main Street, Winnipeg, 1887. Photographer: William McFarlane Notman. Source: Uno Langmann Family Collection of British Columbia Photographs, University of British Columbia Library.
Most of the images are landscapes taken in the mountains, but there are cityscapes and buildings in Winnipeg. A photo of Vancouver on page 49 is definitely worth a look.
To learn about the photos in the album, click on an image in the filmstrip-like series of images across the top. Then, look at the Page Metadata for details about each photo.
The images on the university’s website are provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from Rare Books and Special Collection, University of British Columbia.
The album is part of the Uno Langmann Family Collection of British Columbia Photographs that consists of more than 18,000 photographs from the 1850s to the 1970s. It is considered the premier private collection of early provincial photos and an important illustrated history of early photographic methods.
The university library has digitized more than 7,900 images from 77 albums in the Uno Langmann Family Collection, and they continue to digitize images on an ongoing basis.
Thank you Gail. Some superb photographs. It’s fun browsing through the collections. I searched on the 2nd link on this blog choosing Eastern Canada and found lots of great images. Montreal starts on image 112. So fascinating to see how it looked like then.