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Photography donation bolsters Canmore’s historical legacy

“This series that Lawrence has donated, particularly, is really poignant to understanding Canmore at a very interesting juncture point in our history. The mines had just closed, and we weren't sure where we were going as a community. Between this and the historical inventory that was done between 1982 and 1987, it’s really captured Canmore at really interesting juncture points."

CANMORE – In 1979, documentary photographer Lawrence Chrismas was introduced to Attilio Caffaro, a retired chief mine mechanic who had worked for Canmore Mines Ltd. for 50 years. 

That meeting would propel Chrismas on a nationwide journey and a decades-long quest to photograph coal miners across Canada. Eventually, he would photograph 4,000 miners at coal-mining towns, such as Canmore and in the Crowsnest Pass and Drumheller.

In turn, those images would lead to six books, including Canmore Miners: Coal Miner Portraits and Stories.

He also photographed workers at the Lafarge Exshaw cement plant. 

Recently, Chrismas donated his complete body of work to the Provincial Archives of Alberta. Two volumes of his photographs, some 67 prints of Canmore miners and Exshaw workers taken between 1979 and 2002, went to the Canmore Museum. 

Ron Ulrich, executive director of the Canmore Museum, described the donation as a significant addition to its growing art collection.

“This series that Lawrence has donated, particularly, is really poignant to understanding Canmore at a very interesting juncture point in our history. The mines had just closed, and we weren't sure where we were going as a community,” said Ulrich Wednesday (Jan. 26), while introducing the museum’s latest installment of its Canmore + Art Series that featured Chrismas and Mary-Beth Laviolette, the Canmore Museum associate curator of art and a Canmore-based writer and art curator. 

“Between this and the historical inventory that was done between 1982 and 1987, it’s really captured Canmore at really interesting juncture points,” said Ulrich. The historical inventory documented Canmore’s heritage buildings still standing at that time. 

Ulrich said the museum has plans to use Chrismas’s photographs as part of a virtual exhibit on the history of coal mining in Canmore.  

“Certainly, this collection of work is going to be such an invaluable resource in developing that,” he said. 

Laviolette, meanwhile, said the photographs are poignant as they represent Canmore as it once was. 

“(Chrismas) was also part of a very important generation of documentary photographers who were practicing in the 1970s, 1980s," said Laviolette.

"They left an amazing record of photographs; a lot of it concentrated on Alberta and its various communities. (What) makes me think of the theme “once upon a time” is the fact that these photographs were taken ... with very, very different technology. This was the analog age rather than the digital age."

Chrismas, who studied geology and economics, got a job in Ottawa with the Department of Mines in 1968 as a coal resource economist. This job took him to operating coal mines across Canada, including Canmore, Europe, the U.S. and Korea. In the meantime, he had also been studying photography, learning from established photographers and attending the Banff School of Fine Arts, now known as The Banff Centre. 

A scholarship for a month-long masterclass at The Banff Centre in 1979 brought him to the Bow Valley at a pivotal time in its history: the closing of Canmore’s mines on July 13, 1979, or Black Friday.

“I got the feeling that everybody was in shock because it caught them by surprise, but a couple of the old-timers later told me, ‘We knew that was gonna happen,'" said Chrismas.

"I had the foresight to ask somebody if they could introduce me to an old-timer where I might get an overview of what it was like to be a coal miner in Canmore, and they selected the perfect individual for me: Attilio Caffaro."

Caffaro, who died in 1984, met with Chrismas, told him about life in Canmore and willingly posed for a few portraits, and then introduced him to a few other miners. 

“I photographed five or six more men that week in Canmore and Banff, and then I returned to Ottawa where we were living. I got into my darkroom, and . . . the photographs I made of those coal miners, those five or six men that day in that week in Canmore, inspired me more than anything, and that was the beginning of a project; I couldn't wait until spring came the next year in 1980,” said Chrismas. 

After finding a job in 1980 with an oil company that had an interest in coal mining, Chrismas and his family moved from Ottawa to Calgary. That move allowed him to commit more time to his project. 

“Attilio was a key person in helping me," said Chrismas, who still lives in Calgary. "He introduced me to some wonderful men, as well. He, in his own right, was truly remarkable.”

While Chrismas photographed iconic locations in Canmore, such as the Union Hall, residents remained his key subjects. 

He would interview miners and then suggest a photograph, as he said the interview would often influence the photograph. For example, when he met with George Fisher, Fisher’s passion for music led Chrismas to photograph the retired briquette plant foreman playing the guitar. 

“He was truly an amazing singer, songwriter, and performer. He'd been doing it all his life since he was a young boy. He said he knew 1,000 songs by heart, and that really impressed me. So, I sat in his living room, and he sang for me,” said Chrismas. 

Chrismas worked exclusively with black-and-white negatives and often with a large-format camera that allowed him to use negatives that measured 8 in. x 10 in.

“I did try a few sheets of colour, but it just wasn't the same; I didn't have the control I would have with black and white in my own darkroom. It's interesting, today I'm shooting colour and converting some of it to black and white, but I haven't given up on it.”

In the end, Chrismas said he photographed about 4,000 coal miners across Canada. Chrismas has donated prints to museums in all of the communities where he worked. 

“It's a bit of a legacy that I'm leaving,” he said. “I realized that what I've done has historic value.”

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