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Canadian Pacific
Railway, [before 1942]
(WMCR-V263/NA-1667) |
The Landscape of Travel
Activity Set 8
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Activities |
- Discussion
- Make a photograph album
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Goals |
- To stimulate an appreciation of travel as
movement through time and space
- To foster understanding of the role
travel played in exploration, discovery, recreation and leisure in
the twentieth century
- To explore the documentation of time and
place, changes and experiences
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Levels |
- Elementary
- Intermediate
- Senior
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Curriculum Connections |
- Visual arts
- Social studies
- Language arts
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Materials |
- Image set
H and Image descriptions H
- OR all images in Byron Harmon fonds (to see all
images, click on link below, scroll
down to end of page and click on
"View photographs")
Byron Harmon images
- Empty scrapbooks, albums or binders with
pages
- Pencils, glue
- Display materials such as colour
background paper
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Background |
- Byron Harmon travelled
extensively through the mountain landscape of western Canada. He travelled
by railway, pack train, automobile and foot, visiting towns
and communities as well as numerous remote
backcountry locations. All the while he photographed.
- Travel for pleasure flourished
during the twentieth century. While initially an activity
for the wealthy, it became enormously popular after World War I
with the entire western population. Travellers were anxious
to tell, and show, family and friends details of their travels,
and were especially enthusiastic about the landscapes,
amenities and cultures of places visited. They sent postcards,
purchased photographic prints and viewbooks, and, after returning
home, constructed scrapbooks and photograph albums. (See Image set I)
- Byron Harmon sold many photographs
to tourists through retail outlets and his own
businesses. Harmons business in Banff displayed a wide selection of images
and sold large quantities of prints and postcards.
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Activity 8A
Harmon travelled to many areas
via the Canadian Pacific Railway. What types of images might the
CPR be interested in acquiring to sell to tourists? What types of
images might
the
railway company have acquired for
its own use? What would the company have used the photographs
for?
Activity 8B
Discuss tourist travel as an activity and have students place it within the
context of their own lives. How many
have
travelled by train? Have them describe
what train travel along the same route would be like
today.
Activity 8C
Ask students to review
Image Set H and the
image descriptions. Have the students identify
which images would likely have been popular with tourists?
Before 1914? What popular interests of
the
time influenced photography? Which types of
images would be most popular after 1918? Why were these images
popular?
Students wishing to search further might wish to look at the entire
Byron Harmon fonds, available on-line at the link above (see Materials).
Activity 8D
Have
students imagine that while travelling from Calgary to Vancouver on the
Canadian Pacific Railway in 1910, they purchased prints and postcards
by
the photographer Byron Harmon. Once home,
they create a photograph album of their trip through the
mountains.
Students select and print 20 to
50 views for their own personal photograph album. The views are glued
into the album with captions written below. The album is given a title
which is written inside the front cover. What order are
the
photographs placed in? Why? What sort
of information might a traveller want to include in each
caption?
Activity 8E
Encourage
students
to collect or make photographs
on their next family vacation and create an album from
them.
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