New book to showcase unseen photos of the Peace region before large number of settlers arrived

Beaver girl at Fort St. John. Taken by Hulbert Footner in 1911. (Photo Submitted)

Local historian David W. Leonard is releasing a book that gives a glimpse of the Peace Country through many unpublished photos just before a large scale of settlers arrived in the area. 

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New Rivers of the North Revisited includes excerpts from the original 1912 book New Rivers of the North by Hulbert Footner, who documented his journey through the region in 1911. 

“As a historian, I'm very interested in this period of time in the Peace River country, right when large-scale settlement was about to take place but hadn't yet occurred, and how the natives lived right on the eve of large-scale settlement, and no one had any idea that there'd be such widespread settlement over the next few years, and so capturing these people right on at that point in time was especially meaningful for me,” said Leonard.

“The reason we wanted to reprint it is that we have discovered in the University of Alberta (U of A) archives the entirety of Footner’s photos that he took on his trip of 1911 throughout the Peace Country and up to all the way to Fort Vermillion, Hay River and Alexandra Falls,” said Leonard.

About 120 photos from that journey were discovered at the U of A.

Brock Silversides, graphic designer and archivist, helped clean up the photos to offer the world a glimpse of the region's past.

Leonard says the photos reveal what it was like to live in Northwestern Canada during that time, not only for settlers but also for indigenous people as well. 

Footner made the 1911 journey with his friend Auville Eager, who would help photograph the journey, which led to photos being published of areas the world had never seen before. 

The duo were the first to photograph Alexandra Falls and the Dene Tha’ people along the Hay River.

Their book was an instant success, said Leonard, noting many people were curious about the Peace Country because the Canadian Northern and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway had given promises that they were going to build track in the area in 1909.

“A result of that, the Government of Canada established a dominion land office in Grouard and then sent surveyors up to the area to subdivide the prairie lands of the region into townships and quarter sections for homesteading, farming on a broad scale,” said Leonard.

This would have caught the attention of Footner - who Leonard describes as a dime novelist and journalist who “was prone to exaggeration in a lot of cases’ - to create a travelogue on the region. 

Instead of heading north from Edmonton as did many people at the time, the duo came from the west, travelling through Fort St. John, Dunvegan, Peace River, Fort Vermillion and eventually to Hay River and Alexandra Falls. 

Leonard said there were many photos of the duo's journey that have never been published and that a reprint of the book with some revisions could be done.

“Most of the photographs are of people, in particular native people, especially around Fort St John; we've got some very compelling photos of how the people lived,” said Leonard.

He said one photo depicts a child of about four, an orphan being cared for by the whole community. The photos also show indigenous people wearing European clothing as they had been dealing with fur traders. 

“We hit upon the idea of taking key passages from the book New Rivers of the North and combining that with even more photographs of the area,” said Leonard.

The now-revisited version of the book cuts items that Leonard describes as redundant when talking about beautiful scenery while also removing some derogatory comments made in the first version of the book by Footner. 

“We therefore came upon the title New Rivers of the North Revisited, not revised, but revisited, looking at it from a different perspective,” he said.

The Grande Prairie Museum will host a book launch of New Rivers of the North Revisited on Sept. 25 at 7 p.m.

The book will be for sale for $19.95, and after the event, it will be available for purchase at $29.95.