Following the River out of the Mountains

Down in the bottom, right corner of the post card it says,"217. Kicking Horse Canyon" As you can see, this is a picture of a steam train going along the canyon in the summer (notice the open car at the end of the train).

The Kicking Horse River is in the Canadian Rockies of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. The river was named in 1858, when James Hector, a member of the Palliser Expedition, reported being kicked by his pack-horse while exploring the river. Hector named the river and the associated pass as a result of the incident. The purpose of the Palliser Expedition was to gather scientific information on Rupert's Land, including information on the geography, climate, soil, flora and fauna, to discover its capabilities for settlement and transportation. The Kicking Horse Pass, which connects through the Rockies to the valley of the Bow River, was the route through the mountains that the Canadian Pacific Railway chose when it was constructed. The railway's Big Hill and associated Spiral Tunnels are in the Kicking Horse valley and were necessitated by the steep rate of descent of the river and its valley.

The picture on this post card, like last week's picture, was published by Byron Harmon. You can read last week's posting to find out more about Mr. Harmon.

If you look closely at the top right hand corner, where the stamp is to be placed, you will see a code that hints at the age of this post card. The box around the words, "PLACE STAMP HERE" have the letters "AZO" in between the boxes in the four corners. Azo was a brand name for blue light sensitive, silver chloride photo paper introduced by the Photo Materials Company in Rochester, New York in 1898. Kodak purchased the company that same year. Because of its poor light sensitivity it was manufactured for contact printing rather than enlarging. Its very broad tonal scale makes it the finest paper ever made to produce black & white work on. This paper became the favorite of those producing real photo postcards and was widely popular among amateurs because of its ease to use.

The fact that there are four boxes embedded with the AZO name tells us that this post card was printed between 1927 and 1940. It has been in continuous production longer than any other photo paper but was discontinued in 2005.