In 1969-1970 the London Office of the Public Archives of Canada arranged to make a microfilm copy of eight albums of photographs relating to Canada and Newfoundland compiled by or taken by Alvan Hugh Fisher in 1908-1909 as part of a project sponsored by the Visual Instruction Committe of the British Colonial Office, which rsulted in the publication of a book in 1913 entitled canada and Newfoundland.
These albums are in the Royal Commonwealth Society. The albums were listed as Volumes IX to XVI, and included a total of 1,177 photographs.
The albums were described in a May 1969 RSC Library Notes issue as follows:
"Albums IX to XVI deal with Canada. The sequence moves rather rapidly from east to West and back again and it is possible that someone with a greater knowledge of the country could, by such details as the weather, discover if the arrangement is correct. Album IX begins with photographs of emigrants crossing the Atlantic on the "Empress of Britain" and is followed by scenes in the St. lawrence and of the Quebec Tercentenary pageant. This took place in the last week of July 1908. There are scenes on the Ottawa river, of Montreal, Toronto, Kenora and Winnipeg. These include some very vivid photographs off the beaten track such as wooden houses in Alma Street, Ottawa and a shack on the White River. Finally there are several scenes of rounding up horses on the Bow River ranch at Calgary and views at Banff. Album IX also contains much mountain scenery, in the Kootenay area of British Columbia, and is followed by agricultural activities near Edmonton. Scenes at the Clover Bar School, near Edmonton, depict a football match, boys versus girls, which was probably something of a novelty at that date. Nine photographs show training activitiers of the Royal North-West Mounted Police at Fort Saskatchewan and there are interesting pictures of immigrant groups such as Mennonites, Galicians and Hungarians at Rosthern, Saskatchewan. The end of this volume and the beginning of the next deal with Winnipeg and Volume XI also includes several sets of pictures of economic interest such as the Ogilvie Flour Mills at Fort William, agriculture in Ontario and fishing scenes in Newfoundland. Album XII continues with Newfoundland and also includes Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, ending with British Columbia. Some of these latter photographs are rather faded and unattractive.
Album XIII shows the dry-dock at Esquimalt, British Columbia, 40 mountain views from the railway line, the Kenora area, the St. Lawrence frozen, and scenes at Macdonald College, Quebec, including the women's gymnastics class, cooking and dress-making. In Album XIV there are photographs of 'Maple Sugaring" in the woods near Jolliette [sic] at the end of winter and material on Prince Edward island including lobster fishing, sheep and cattle farming and apple growing. Photographs of Halifax, Nova Scotia in this and the following volume include the Royal Canadian Garrison Artillery at gun drill and the Royal Canadian Regiment.
Album XV includes Lunenberg harbour Nova Scotia, Bridgwater [sic], more than 30 lumbering scenes in King's County, and photographs of Cobalt mining. Album XVI, which concludes the Canadian material, has photographs of winter sports at Montreal and Toronto relating to the period covered by XIII, and perhaps supplied to Fisher by another photographer, and ice-bergs off Newfoundland."
The current location of the microfilm copy is unknown.
