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Photographs in the albums depict the transformation and development of northern resources by non-native enterprises in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Alaska, Greenland, and other northern areas; maritime, land, and aerial transportation facilities which feature involvement by the Department of Transport, Canadian Airways Ltd.; Canadian Pacific Airlines; steam ships such as Nascopie, Distributor, Medico, Paterson, and Beothic; the Alaskan and Yukon Highways and Haines Junction, Yukon; mining industry developments at Yellowknife, Negus Bay, and Ptarmigan, N.W.T., under the responsibility of the Department of Mines and Resources, the Geological Survey of Canada and the International Tungsten and Thompson-Lundmark Companies; the Alcan project; the petroleum industry; the Canol project, Imperial Oil ltd.; and Hudson's Bay Co. activities. There are aerial photos of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon taken by the Royal Canadian Air Force; activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the north, such as production of census reports and management of Inuit communities. Photographs of Inuit in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Alaska, Greenland and other northern areas for ethnographic and population management purposes: formal and informal portraits of individuals, families and communities; Inuit building shelter, hunting and fishing, participating in customs and rituals, dogs and transportation; settlement patterns. Photographs depicting activities of non-native settlers, visitors and government administrators in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Alaska, Greenland and other northern areas: nursing stations and health services; education facilities and schools; views en route to and from southern Canadian locations; interactions with Inuit communities; churches and religious instruction; and police investigations. Articles in the folios cover national parks; wild life; recreational activities in Canada, such as fishing, trail riding, and climbing. Published in a wide variety of Canadian and American newspapers, magazines, and journals.

Custodial history

Accession 1974-366 originally came with seventy (70) albums, 7 folios of articles, and an assortment of loose photographs that were to total 17,729 photographs. There are approximately 800 photos currently not accounted for in the photo albums, which creates a total of ca. 1000 - 2000 loose photographs from this collection. This accession was a government transfer from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs' Departmental Library in 1974. However, most of the photographs were originally taken for the Department of the Interior's Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch.