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A framed photograph of James Dunsmuir Jr. mounted on his horse, Kismet. A different photograph taken during the same sitting was donated to Craigdarroch by a Dunsmuir descendant in 2019 (see https://collection.thecastle.ca/Detail/objects/9058). In that version, the birch-forested backdrop was edited out in order to accentuate the subject.

This is one in a series of photographs taken by William Notman & Son in Montreal, PQ. The McCord Museum holds the Notman Collection, and their copy of this image is II-199153. See: 
http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/scripts/large.php?Lang=1&accessnumber=II-199153&idImage=141518 
(last accessed July 7, 2020)

Known to his family and friends simply as “Boy”, James Dunsmuir was deeply fond of the horse depicted here, Kismet. The steed had been purchased by Hon. James Dunsmuir and shipped from the United Kingdom to his son Boy in Montreal, where he lived and worked before The Great War.¹  Boy and Kismet returned to Victoria, and in May, 1915 Boy drowned in the torpedoing and sinking of the RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. His body was never found. His uncle, Guy Mortimer Audain, had travelled to Ireland to examine the unidentified bodies recovered from the wreck, but he could not locate Boy among them.

The cause of death and final resting place of Kismet is uncertain. Dunsmuir descendant Michael James Audain informed Craigdarroch’s Curator Bruce Davies that Kismet perished on board the RMS Lusitania, and that Boy probably drowned trying to save him. Ian Sherwin, son of Dunsmuir chauffeur John Sherwin informed Davies that Kismet lived at Hatley Park until after Mrs. James Dunsmuir’s death in 1937, when he was euthanized and buried near the southwest corner of the stable at Hatley Park. Royal Roads University Archivist Jenny Seeman informed Davies in May 2019 that recent excavations completed in the location of the reported burial spot did not uncover any horse remains.

This photograph was probably taken in Montreal, because birch-tree forests do not naturally occur on coastal Vancouver Island. Boy and Kismet lived together first in Montreal, and later, in Colwood, BC at Hatley Park.

1. James Audain. From Coal Mine to Castle (New York: Pageant Press, 1955), 153

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