The Rainbow Mountains comprise a small range on the Alberta/B.C. border which include Mount Robson, as well as the mountains surrounding the Canadian Rockies’ highest peak.
The Rainbow Mountains is also the title of an exhibition of photographs by early Rockies master Byron Harmon, which will be displayed at Harmon Gallery in Banff’s Harmony Lane from Aug. 6 through fall.
Part of Banff Culture Days, the exhibit will feature 13 images taken by Harmon during an historic expedition to Mount Robson in 1911. Led by the Alpine Club of Canada’s founding president, surveyor A.O. Wheeler, the trip was the most ambitious to date organized by the club since its founding in 1906.
Despite the fact at that time Reverend George Kinney and outfitter Donald ‘Curly’ Phillips were recognized as having made the first ascent in 1909 (which was later disproved as all evidence points to them having turned back in poor visibility short of the summit), the ACC was planning an expedition to Robson in 1913, and the 1911 trip served as a reconnaissance.
Under Wheeler, the Robson expedition included Austrian mountain guide Conrad Kain, who would ultimately make the undisputed first ascent in 1913, Phillips as outfitter, Kinney as assistant and Harmon as photographer and cook.
While Wheeler’s attempts to interest Canadian scientists in his expedition did not succeed, he did entice Dr. Charles Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to conduct scientific studies under the permit of the geology, flora and fauna of the area.
The expedition’s supplementary party also included Ned Hollister, assistant curator of mammals for the United States National Museum, J.H. Riley from the same USNM, with Charles Walcott Jr. and Harry H. Blagden serving as the party hunters who were also enlisted to secure big game specimens.
Travelling west from Edmonton to the end of railroad construction near Henry House via the Grand Trunk Railway, the party then set off into the wilderness. Over the course of the summer they made the first circuit of Mount Robson, mapped and surveyed much of the country of that region and climbed 30 peaks, many of them first ascents. They also surveyed the area around Jasper’s Maligne Lake and eventually returned to Laggan (now Lake Louise) through the early autumn snows.
The exhibition has been planned to mark the centennial of that trip, said Carole Harmon, granddaughter of Byron. His images were large format black and white photos taken with a view camera on the earliest cellulose-nitrate based sheet films, and he carried at least two cameras on the trip.
Capturing horses and men travelling through spectacular landscapes with the distinctive Byron Harmon eye, the photos reveal a timeless wonder of the rugged and captivating Rockies wilderness.
“This particular expedition has always appealed to my imagination,” Harmon said. “A favourite photo is one of rafting on Kinney Lake - a favourite because it is a very challenged negative which I have managed to pull back to life. Also, the image of Conrad Kain on the Summit of Mount Resplendent, which was taken on the first ascent of that mountain by Conrad and Byron. The image was shot in the snow I think, and it tells the story of two renegades who abandoned camp to climb.”
In addition to the exhibit, Carole is working on a 9 X 14-inch horizontal viewbook featuring 20 images and four pages of text. Developed from this project and styled after Byron’s historical viewbooks, it is scheduled for completion in the fall.
The Rainbow Mountains, a Centennial Exhibition of Photographs by Byron Harmon open on Saturday, Aug. 6, with a reception taking place from 2-5 p.m.
For more information, visit www.harmonphotography.com
