Few individuals have had as much opportunity to traverse the breadth of Canada as the photographers who rode the rails for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Almost from the company's beginnings in 1881, CPR hired noted photographers, first on contract, then later in its own in-house photography and publicity departments. Portraits of Canada presents the very best of their work in a visual journey across Canada in space and time.
This book is a painstaking selection of 150 of the most thought-provoking, stunning, and sometimes quixotic images from the approximately 800,000 historic images in the Canadian Pacific Railway Archives, including momentous events in Canadian history, the social changes that swept through Canada from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, and picturesque scenes from across Canada that were sent around the world by the CPR. These are postcards of a nation that allow us to see the country as it was, and how it was perceived by outsiders looking in.
About the Author: Jonathan B. Hanna, born in Montreal, graduated from Concordia University in 1979 with a BA in history. He worked in Canadian Pacific Railway's corporate archives in the 1970s, CPR's photographic services and advertisement departments in the 1980s, and in marketing communications and administration in the 1990s, before being appointed CPR corporate historian in 2000. Jonathan took early retirement from CPR in 2005 and was appointed corporate historian emeritus.
Robert C. Kennell pursued his interest in photography at Toronto's Ryerson Institute of Photography before joining CPR's photographic department in 1975. He honed his skills, criss-crossing the country for more than twenty years photographing virtually every aspect of railways operations. In 1995, Robert began applying his passion for photography and his knowledge of the CPR to the management of CPR's 800,000-image photo collection.
Carol LaCourte immigrated to Canada from the U.S. in 1976 after having lived and taught in Finland, France and Venezuela. She received a master's degree in library science at the Universite de Montreal, and worked for several companies before joining CPR in 1989. She is in charge of CPR's business intelligence function as well as the CPR Archives. Carol has made it her goal to share CPR's archival treasures with the Canadian public.
