MLA Red Pedersen, then HBC manager at Dorset, with wife, who was Greenland Eskimo [Greenlandic Inuit], 1960.
Eskimo dogs [Sled dogs] haul medical team's equipment to Single Otter at old Fort Ross. [1957?]
HBC Clerk Neil Timberlake at Tuktoyaktuk, 1956. He was a South African. RCMP detachment in background. [Identified elsewhere as Laurie Phinney]
Dene boy on trapline maintained by Anglican residential school in Aklavik, six miles south of settlement. Good scholars could spend the weekends trapping. 1958.
Mrs. Leonard Holman, wife of principal of Anglican residential school [All Saints], Aklavik, with cook and one of the girl students in the kitchen, 1959.
The majority of the photographs show locations within the Northwest Territories, however images from northern Alberta, northern Manitoba and northern Quebec complement the overarching theme of news reporting in Canada's north. A wide range of subject matter is covered in the photographs. Subjects include DEW line operations; educational activities; views of northern communities and people from both the eastern and western arctic; native reserves; mining operations; church work in the north; highway and road construction; and special functions such as the official opening of public buildings.
This fonds consists of 1,207 photographs, including 852 predominantly black and white negatives and prints, and 355 colour slides.
The majority of the images were taken by Erik Watt between 1950 and 1995. These images fall into two broad groups: those that Erik Watt took during his career as a journalist in the 1950s and 1960s, and those Erik took primarily in the 1980s and 1990s while he was employed in various capacities. The majority of the 1950s-1960s photographs are black and white and show locations within the Northwest Territories, however, images from northern Alberta, northern Manitoba, and northern Quebec complement the overriding theme of Canada's north. A wide range of subject matter is represented in these photographs, including: DEW line operations; educational activities; views of northern communities and people from both the eastern and western arctic; Aboriginal reserves; mining operations; church work in the north; road construction; and special functions such as the official opening of public buildings. The 1980s-1990s photographs are colour slides and primarily document mine sites and infrastructure.
The remainder of the photographs were taken by Erik's father, Frederick Watt, and date between 1929-1933. These images include the first air mail flight to Aklavik, images of floatplanes and pilots, prospecting and staking activities and the establishment of the Cameron Bay settlement and mine. Some of these images were used in Frederick Watt's book "Great Bear: A Journey Remembered".
Watt, ErikF.B.W. [Fred B. "Ted" Watt] A fine day on Lindsley Bay. First wash of the season. 1932. The gold pan gets its first use.
F.B.W. [Fred B. "Ted" Watt] on first ground staked by Beck Syndicate. [Echo Bay, 1932]
Aklavik, 1957.[Aerial]
HBC Manager Ian McGhee standing by permafrost freezer dug into riverbank beneath [Hudson's] Bay post in Aklavik. Twenty feet deep, it kept perishables frozen all summer. Photo taken in 1958.
Chopping hole for water, Aklavik, 1956.
Aklavik, looking west, 1958. Police buildings at left. Square, hip-roofed building at right is old North Star Hotel.
Aklavik, April, 1958. [Pile of boxes, garbage, cans near a 45 gallon drum on street in winter]
Inspector W. G. Fraser, officer in charge of Aklavik RCMP sub-division, also in close-up, with police dogs in Aklavik, 1957. Subdivision was still doing patrol by dog of up to 1,500 miles then. [RCMP officers (on left Inspector A. Huget not Fraser) stand by dog teams with Otto Binder Jr, middle, a special constable for the RCMP. He guided the team through the Yukon and Northwest Territories.]
Students at Anglican residential school [All Saints], Aklavik, 1957 or 1958. [Classroom]
Twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-per-week curling rink (2 lanes) at Aklavik, 1956.
[Three unidentified men working with a piece of equipment that appears to be a winch.]
[Seven unidentified men standing beside a truck.]
[The paddle steamer, "Northland Echo" passing by an unidentified community.]