[Handsome Annotated Vernacular Photograph Album Documenting Hunting and Travel in Canada and Alaska]

[Various locations in Canada and Alaska], 1920. Very good.. 211 silver gelatin photographs on twenty-four leaves, most measuring 5 x 3.5 inches or 3.5 x 2 inches. Plus two photos and a copy of the Daily Alaskan newspaper laid in. Oblong folio. Original brown cloth covers, string-tied. Light wear to covers. First leaf detached. Contents clean, images crisp and clear. A handsome vernacular photograph album documenting a trip taken by Charles E. Hermann and several others through the Canadian Rockies, British Columbia, and into Alaska. The first few leaves contain very nice images of Banff and hiking on the Illecillewaet Glacier. From there, the trip moves (truncated) to Alert Bay, British Columbia and on into Dawson, Yukon Territory. There are images of gold dredging equipment in the Yukon, as well as images of the towns of Dawson and Alert Bay. From Dawson, the group moved on to Carcross, Yukon, and on to Skagway. One very good image shows three members of the party standing on the sidewalk in Skagway, with the street of the town laid out behind them. Another photo is captioned "The Alaska-Juneau Gold Mill; Capacity, 8,000 tons/day." Other locations include Admiralty Island and Mendenhall Glacier. The last half of the album documents the group's hunting and fishing trip, with many scenes of wilderness and camping. The whole album is captioned throughout, sometimes identifying Hermann in the images. The pictures are well-composed and several are quite striking.

Charles E. Hermann was a St. Louis native who became chairman of the board of Reliance Whiting Co., a company that produced whiting and crushed rock. This explains, to some extent, his interest in the machinery and mining operations in the region. On the whole, a solid album documenting a businessman's hunting and hiking trip through the Canadian and Alaskan wilds. (Inventory #: 2435)