Accession Number

2012.007.001.158

Description

One sepia tone photograph of five men standing on a platform with a large wooden crane behind them. Beyond the crane is a powerful hose-nozzle spraying water onto a rocky hillside. More men in two groups stand to the left. At the bottom of the photograph is upper-case lettering describing the scene.

Narrative

This August 1901 photograph depicts a group of men engaged in a placer gold-mining operation at Boulder Creek, Atlin, B.C. The commercially produced print was probably sold to a member of the Dunsmuir family. 

In August 1901, Premier James Dunsmuir and about 20 other family members and associates traveled to northern British Columbia and Alaska aboard the Dunsmuir steamer, SS Joan, named for Joan Dunsmuir. They visited Port Essington at the confluence of the Skeena and Ecstall Rivers before steaming north to Skagway, Alaska, from where they travelled to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.¹   James Dunsmuir testified at an enquiry in 1902 and stated that he was in Atlin on about August 17, 1901.²

1. Victoria Daily Colonist, August 30, 1901 p5
2. Victoria Daily Colonist, April 24, 1902 p5

History of Use

This photograph was acquired by a member of the Dunsmuir family in August, 1901 and placed in an album created by the James and Laura Dunsmuir family at Burleith, their home on Victoria's Gorge Waterway. In 1906 it was probably taken by the family to Victoria's Government House where they lived while James served as British Columbia's eighth Lieutenant Governor. From there it was taken to the family's new house, Hatley Park, in 1910.

Sometime after Laura Miller Dunsmuir's death in 1937, the album became the property of Dola Frances Dunsmuir (also known as Mrs. Dola Cavendish) and was kept at her house Dolaura in Colwood, B.C. After hear death, the album was owned by her sister Kathleen's daughter, Judith Humphreys (also known as Mrs. Judith Joy). Her daughter donated the album to Craigdarroch Castle in 2012.

Date

August 1901

Dimensions

10.8 x 17 cm

Artwork Title

SOCIETÈ MINIÈRE DE LA COLOMBIE BRITANNIQUE BOULDER CREEK ATLIN, B.C. Aug., 1901

Support

Paper, Photographic paper

Country of Origin

Canada