Railroad Building in Québec Photograph Album, 1906-1909
154 photographs in 1 album
The Railroad building in Québec photograph album contains 154 photographs that document a survey team operating in various remote locations in the Canadian province of Québec from May 1906 to September 1909 during the construction of the National Transcontinental Railway.
The album (18 x 29.5 cm) has brown leather covers with "Photographs" stamped in gold on the front. Most images are dated and are arranged in roughly chronological order from May 1906 to September 1909, but there is no identification of people or places. The presence of surveying equipment in several images and the coverage of many different places on the railway’s route indicate a traveling survey team as the likely source of the photographs. The group seems to have been present at all stages of the project, from clearing the land to laying the track bed to building overpasses.
Contents consist of images of worker encampments and log cabin villages, landscapes, scenes from Québec City’s tricentennial in July 1908, railway workers and women in camp, trestle construction, unidentified towns in various stages of development, and two portraits of Native Americans. Also of interest are numerous images featuring surveying tools and equipment as well as cameras.