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magazine / ja08
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July/August 2008 issue |
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FEATURE
Edge of the Empire
Photos by an unheralded English photographer continue to shape our perception of early British Columbia, 150 years after it became a mainland colony
Photography by Frederick Dally with story by Monique Roy-Sole
It is an iconic image of colonial British Columbia: a mule train pulls a covered
wagon on a section of the Cariboo Road, blasted through perilous terrain along
the Thompson River en route to the goldfields of the Interior. Widely published
but seldom attributed, the photograph was taken in 1867 or 1868 by Frederick
Dally, an Englishman who worked as a photographer in British Columbia for
only four years (1866 to 1870) but left an enduring visual legacy of life on
the West Coast in the euphoric days of the gold rush.
“Dally’s images are well known, but his name is not,” says
Joan Schwartz, a photographic historian who has been studying Dally for three
decades. Formerly in charge of the photography collection at the National Archives
of Canada and now an associate professor at Queen’s University in Kingston,
Ont., Schwartz has chronicled Dally’s life and photography in a forthcoming
book. “His visual record of the beginnings of British Columbia surpassed
that of his contemporaries,” she says,“in artistic ability, technical
skill and market appeal.” As the province celebrates the 150th anniversary
of the creation of the mainland Colony of British Columbia in 1858, Dally’s
imagery offers a singular insight into pre-Confederation colonial society,
from the imperial elite to gold miners and coastal First Nations.
The youngest of nine children, Dally was educated at a charity school in London,
England, and apprenticed with a linen and woollen draper. In 1862, at the age
of 24, he “resolved to go to British Columbia having heard much of its
resources,” according to a letter of reference. He brought along a shipment
of merchandise and opened a shop in Victoria. Four years later, he sold his
stock and set up a photographic studio on Fort Street.
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