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.

Hybrid in More Ways than One

We have gone back to the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, Canada.

This is a picture of a passenger train in the Fraser River Valley. One can see the river in the valley on the right hand side of the post card. There isn’t enough detail to be able to say anything about the engine itself. There is only one engine and it looks like it is pulling a baggage car and three passenger cars. It is on quite the steep slope and the rocks on the slope hint that this part of the railroad was dynamited to be able to get the two parts of Canada united by the transcontinental railroad.

This is a hybrid card. The front of the card looks very much like those printed before March 1, 1907. The printer kindly left a bit of room for the sender to put a short message to the right side of the picture before posting the card.

But, when we look at the back, we see that it was actually printed after March 1, 1907. There is space on the left of the card for the message and the right hand side of the card clearly states: “THIS SPACE FOR ADDRESS ONLY.” It is just under the words Post Card at the top. While the card was printed in Canada, the Canadians could not escape the influence of the American postal system.

Middlesex county Woburn was incorporated in 1642. It can be found near Boston in Middlesex County almost on the eastern coast of Massachusetts. It is near Horn Pond, which is one of the sources of the Mystic River. That is where this card was posted, and yet it has a Canadian 2 cent stamp on it. That makes it again a hybrid: Canadian card and stamp mailed in the USA. Amelia sent this message to her friend, Celina: “Hello Celina, Am enjoying myself very much. This is some country. Love, Amelia.” Celina lived in Montague City, Massachusetts. It is found in the northwest part of the state in Franklin County. It is a very young town, being incorporated in 1754.

The post card was published and printed by Warwick Bro’s. & Rutter, Limited out of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. The firm of Warwick Bros & Rutter published over 7,024 picture postcards during what is now called “The Golden Age of Postcards” (1901-1913).

For some years, the firm made a specialty of the production of picture post cards. It was the first Canadian firm to enter the field with “Made in Canada” coloured cards, leading the way in three color and four color printing processes and making available the highest class of color printing at a popular price.

Source: “Warwick Bros & Rutter Limited. The Story of a Business 1848-1923"

Huff and Puff and Puff !

Some of my earlier blog postings discussed the various issues that the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) had to face as it was building the Transcontinental Railroad. The area near Field, British Columbia was particularly nasty! This post card helps to illustrate just how bad it was.

There are three steam engines pushing what looks like six passenger cars up the hill toward the summit of the Rocky Mountains just east of Field, British Columbia. If you look carefully, in the lower right hand corner of the picture is a short section of track that goes up a hill to nowhere in particular. CPR built several of these little spurs so that trains that lost control would have an emergency pull out to keep them from careening down the mountain side into the Kicking Horse River.


The picture on the front of this post card was taken by Richard H. Trueman.

He also printed the post card. Trueman first arrived in British Columbia in 1889. He had begun his career as a photographer in Brampton, Ontario, (where he was born in 1856) in the early 1880s at about the time replacement of the cumbersome wet-plate process by faster, commercially available dry-plates was revolutionizing photography, making outdoor photography an economic and practical reality. After working along the Canadian Pacific Railway main line for a year, Trueman and his partner, Norman Caple, set up headquarters in Vancouver. For the next four years the firm of Trueman & Caple worked between Winnipeg and the coast, specializing in mountain and railway views, ranch scenes and Indians.2 This specialty continued for Trueman even after the partnership dissolved and R. H. Trueman & Company of Vancouver was established in 1894. Although the company was primarily a portraiture business, the landscape and documentary sidelines remained Trueman's avocation. For the next sixteen years, until his death in 1911, he travelled the rails throughout the province, skilfully recording life and landscape.

This post card was mailed on August 24, 1909. It is over 100 years old.

Along the Kicking Horse River...

... AGAIN!

Once again, we see a post card showing the struggling train as it heads up the Kicking Horse Canyon next to the Kicking Horse River. The words scratched onto the bottom of the picture say,"777. Mt. Field and Kicking Horse River." This train looks as if it is on its way from Golden, British Columbia to Field.

It is a passenger train of nine cars; the observation car at the back tells me that the Canadian Pacific Railroad certainly knew the stunning beauty of this area would be a great attraction to paying passengers. I wonder if this car simply went back and forth from Revelstoke, British Columbia (or even Vancouver) to Calgary, Alberta and back over and over and over...


Once again, I include some biography about Byron Harmon from the website: "http://www.harmonphotography.com/artists/byron.html"

The most ambitious and photographically lucrative trip of Harmon’s career was a self-initiated trek across the Columbia Icefield with writer Lewis Freeman in 1924. What made the expedition so impressive was not only the crossing itself but the inclusion of a pack train of 15 horses loaded to the teeth with photographic and motion picture equipment. In one instance of extremely bad weather near the beginning of the trip, Harmon lost,”more supplies in two days than the recent US Geological Survey expedition lost in its three months voyage through the rapids of the Grand Canyon. Even at that, however, we were never seriously handicapped by a shortage either of food or of photographic supplies”1. Also included in the supplies were several carrier pigeons Harmon had bred himself and an early radio device, the intent being to, prove that radio reception was possible in the wilds of the western mountains, and “wanting to see if the pigeons could thread their way through the peaks back to Banff” 2. In both cases the experiments were successful. The trip followed, primarily, the line of the Continental Divide and included many dangerous river crossings as well as the treacherous ice travel. In one extreme case of photographic stoicism, Harmon camped in one spot for eight days waiting for the perfect light on Mt. Columbia. The trip yielded 400 stills, 700 feet. of film, an article for National Geographic, and a book by Freeman entitled On the Roof of the Rockies.

Working Hard!!

Once again, we are in the Kicking Horse Canyon. I have chased trains for many years in this area. There are some areas where the highway is right next to the railroad tracks and others up high where some very spectacular views can be had. I know from my own experience why Byron Harmon would have so many pictures of trains taken in this area. PLUS, it is close to Banff, his adopted home town.

In this picture There are two engines puling a passenger train up the hill toward Banff, after passing Field, Yoho, Stephen, Divide and a few other stations. I tried to read the numbers on these engines with my magnifying glass, but could not. I can't even see the wheel arrangements clearly, but it looks like they could be either 2-6-0s or 2-6-2s.

Letting my imagination carry me away, I like to think that Bryon was spotted by the first engineer who is blowing his whistle to recognize Byron and his camera's presence.

Again, more about Byron from the website:


Harmon reached the peak of his career in the early 1920’s. Although by this time his participation with the Alpine Club had petered off, he was organising his own mountaineering trips with purely photographic objectives, allowing him to seek out the ideal situations for mountain photography. As well, his work had gained national and even international recognition.

Going UP!

These two post cards are pictures of the same view. And, they have the same writing on the bottom of the picture to identify where it was: "772. Kicking Horse Canyon." I have both of these cards in my collection because one is in black and white while the other is done in sepia tones.

One can tell by looking at the rapids in the river that the train is headed up hill. What I do not know is where the picture was taken and what mountain is in the background. My experience while chasing trains in the Kicking Horse Canyon is that this might be at the bottom of the canyon where today a very large bridge flies over the river and trains tracks. The highway is in the middle left of the card just as the river bends to the right. I think that this closeness places the scene where I just described??? I will have to take my collection with me next time we head west from Edmonton at that latitude.

The train in the picture only has one engine and it is a freight! Maybe there is a pusher at the back helping it up the mountain slopes. Anyway, this one certainly is working!! Look at that smoke coming out of the stack.

Here is a profile of the elevations along the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway as it goes from Calgary, Alberta to Golden, British Columbia through the Rockies. I found this on the wall of the Whyte Museum in Banff, Alberta.

It shows that Calgary is 3,248 feet above sea level; the second station is Cochrane (a town in Alberta) at 3,749 feet; Morley, which is a very flat plain on an Indian Reservation, is at 4,067 feet; three stations later we are in Canmore, Alberta (another town) at 4,284; then Banff is at 4,521 feet; Castle Mountain (we will see this in a later blog posting) is at 4,880 feet; Stephen (the tallest point on the chart) is at 5,321 feet; then it drops down to Field, British Columbia at 4,064 feet.
So, you can see that the change in the elevation from Morley to Stephen is the same as the change in elevation from Stephen to Field. However, the distance from Morley to Stephen is about 67 miles and the distance from Stephen to Field is only 13 miles.

More about Byron Harmon from the website:


In town, Harmon pursued his civic responsibilities as enthusiastically as he did his photography. After 1908, his business continued to expand and additions and renovations to his commercial building, Harmons, became almost yearly events. He lent his time and energy to many boards and committees and was an outspoken businessman in the community. He garnered a reputation as a quiet, amiable man with a good sense of humour, dedicated to his work, his family, and his town. Portrait work became an active pursuit for Harmon again, as well, and he recorded many famous images of the Stoney Indians both on their reserve at Morley and during the Banff Indian Days celebrations in Banff.

Getting Even Closer

I thought that the last blog post had a close up of a train along the Kicking Horse River; I was mistaken.

Take a look at the picture on this post card. While it is not in the best of shapes, it does show a very close up view of another train on the CPR mainline. Through my 15 power magnifying glass, I can see that the engine number has four digits, but I can't make out what they are. The train does seem to be double headed, as per usual on this section of the mainline. There is writing along the bottom right hand toward the corner. It says,"357. Kicking Horse Canyon." It was written there by Byron Harmon when he developed and printed the post card. The back has the stamp on it that tells us that it is his card and provides reminders of which side is for the address and which side is for the correspondence.

This poor post card has several bends and creases in it. But, it is a Byron Harmon original and so it stays in my collection. So, a bit more about Byron:(taken from the website: http://www.harmonphotography.com/artists/byron.html)

In 1906 The Alpine Club of Canada was formed under the Directorship of Arthur O. Wheeler. With Byron’s noticeable presence in town, Wheeler invited him to become a charter member and the official club photographer. To compliment it’s lofty ambitions, the ACC was committed to publishing an annual journal, which would feature prominently Harmon’s photos. The opportunity was a rare blessing and afforded Harmon a shot at reaching his goal of photographing every peak in the Rockies in as many moods and settings as possible.

Two Alpine Club trips in particular accounted for a sizeable body of Harmon’s collection and increased his stature as a photographer and a mountain goer. The first was a trip into the Purcell Mountains with Wheeler and Himalayan climber Dr. T. G. Longstaff in 1910, during which Harmon discovered and photographed Bugaboo Glacier.. The second was a three-month expedition the following year into the Mt. Robson area with Wheeler, mountain guide Conrad Kain, and four scientists from the Smithsonian Institute. For Wheeler, the trip was a chance to explore new territory in preparation for a later ACC camp and to scout out the Canadian Rockies’ most lofty peak; for the scientists it was a great look at the flora and fauna of the northern Canadian Rockies; and for Harmon it was an intimate look at some of the wildest country in Western Canada. During the trip, Harmon and Kain made a first ascent of nearby Mt. Resplendent, 3362 meters. During a future trip Harmon would photograph a party summiting the ridge of Mt. Resplendent, one of his most famous images.

Along the River

This post card is a picture of a train travelling along the edge of the Kicking Horse River. In the bottom right hand corner, Byron Harmon has written, “217. Kicking Horse Canyon”. I have a magnifying glass with a small light on it; when I look very carefully, and at the right angle, I can read these words on top of the river. If you compare this to the picture on the front of post card in the blog post of two days ago, you could see the curves in the river that look very similar to those in the previous post card.

I can understand Byron finding his way down to the river to be able to get a great shot like this one. One can see the entire train: two engines and tenders at the front, eleven enclosed passenger and baggage cars and one open car at the back. The rapids in the water show that the engines are working their way up the canyon from Field toward the Spiral Tunnels. If one looks carefully, especially with the assistance of a lighted magnifying glass, one can see in the upper right hand corner of the post card, a gash in the side of the mountain. Perhaps that is where the picture of the previous post card was taken and where the upper Spiral Tunnel is – who knows?

The back of the post card is just like the one of the previous blog post. It has AZO where the stamp goes with squares in the corners. So, this card is about the same age as the one in the last posting. AZO is a type of paper used to print photographs for over a century. It was first offered to the world by Kodak in 1898. Its best use was for developing contact prints. Many photographers have used AZO paper because of its qualities to produce a sharp image on strong paper. It seems Byron Harmon liked it, too.

This introduction to the biography of Byron Harmon comes from: http://www.harmonphotography.com/artists/byron.html

Again the photographer is Byron Harmon. He was born on the family homestead at Olympia, Washington, and endowed with a knack for using his hands, an adventurer’s spirit, and a bad case of asthma that vexed him his entire life. As a teenager, photography grabbed his interest and he waded into the new medium with a pinhole camera he constructed himself. An enterprising young man, he opened up a portrait studio in Tacoma, WA. Without enough money to buy film he accepted his first client and proceeded to take her picture with an empty camera. Requesting a down payment, he used the money to buy film and then asked the lady back for retakes. From that moment on he never looked back. Harmon soon realised that there was little to hold his interest in portrait photography alone. Packing his studio into three valises, he set out to wrestle with the North American landscape, heading across the southern United States, up through New York, and back west across Canada, garbed in a travelling hobos fashion wearing overalls, a white shirt and a wide brimmed straw hat, his feet naked in his boots. Wandering amidst these landscapes, his eye for geography and his talent with a lens developed quickly.

In 1903, at age 27, Harmon made a short visit to a bustling little community in the Canadian Rockies called Banff. Already with a handful of hotels, a chemist, a sanitarium, and international stardom, Harmon was shocked to find that the town was without a photographic studio. As an added bonus, the dry mountain air helped relieve his asthma. The visit was short but his impression of the place was a lasting one and he soon returned to make a living photographing mountains. Without roads or trail systems, the mountains required him to negotiate their steep slopes and treacherous passes to discover his sought after images, a deed equally as challenging as framing up the jagged peaks. His forays into mountaineering bore fruit and in 1906 he opened up shop on Banff Avenue advertising the largest collection of Canadian Rockies images in existence.

Introduction to Byron Harmon

This post card is a picture that was shot near the two spiral tunnels. It has a great shot of the Kicking Horse River in the background and the title written on the picture tells us that it is on Field Hill. This is still a steep section on the CPR main line. It is located near Field, B.C. a town that was built so that the Canadian Pacific Railway could add locomotives to trains to assist them over both Field Hill and the Big Hill (which I wrote about in the last posting).

The Railway built a roundhouse made of stone with a turntable so the engines could simply turn around go back to where they came. While Field Hill was not as steep as the Big Hill, it was steep enough to require assistance getting over even after the spiral tunnels were finished. Having said that, this is a picture of a train with only one engine on the head end. It must have been a very short train or there was one attached at the back.

This picture was taken by Byron Harmon as was the picture in the previous posting. I have about 30 of his train post card pictures. I will be sharing them with you over the next several blog postings. I will also be sharing some information about Mr. Harmon. I was impressed with the angles at which he was able to take some of these shots. I thought he must be very brave and adventurous to get to the places where he was to get these pictures. So, I investigated Byron Harmon. HE WAS BRAVE AND ADVENTUROUS!! You will find out more as we progress through the set of post cards I have in my collection.

The back of the post card can give us an idea of how old this particular card is.

In the top right, where the stamp goes, there is a rubber stamp marking. It says, “PLACE STAMP HERE” inside of a box that has AZO on all four sides and a square in each corner. The squares in the corners indicate that this post card was made sometime between 1926 and the 1940s. It is one of the younger cards with an AZO stamp on the back. They were started in 1907 with diamonds in the corners. On the left side of the card, Byron has stamped “ALONG LINE OF CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY” and included information that he was the photographer and he holds the copyright. It also tells us that he was headquartered in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

I have lived in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (about 400 kilometers or 250 miles from Banff) for 29 years. I have been to Banff and I have seen the building he built to house his business. I have talked to the person in the gallery and I have visited his granddaughter’s website.