Occasionally I post pictures from my family’s archives that might be of local historical interest. For many years, I had misplaced shots of my great-uncle Sidney’s pack train through the Crowsnest Pass, but I found two of the three yesterday. So, it seemed like a good time to post them.
Through much of the nineteenth century, the easiest access to this region was from the south—a consequence of the area’s system of north-south valleys and mountain ranges. This changed with the C.P.R.’s construction of the the Crowsnest Line from Lethbridge to Kootenay Landing (south end of Kootenay Lake). It was built during the years of 1897 and 1898, and it opened up an east-west route into the area. This significantly altered the development of the region.
During the construction, mail and many supplies had to be carried by pack train. Sidney S. Fraser ran one of these. Of course, the job only lasted for a short time. So, Sidney married a lass from Pincher Creek and settled on the West Arm of the the Lake at what came to be known as Fraser’s Landing. It served as the western terminus of the Main Lake ferry from 1931 to 1947.
As far as I know, Sidney Fraser never owned a camera, so the photographer is unknown. It shows him on one of the horses of his pack train. He is on flat land, possibly in the Rocky Mountain Trench.
The second picture is labeled as Pack Train, Canadian Rockies and was taken by Byron Harmon. Harmon later operated a photo studio in Banff (1904-1942).
Nicole Tremblay has just written me to say that she located the second picture in the archives of the Whyte Museum in Banff. The odd thing about this that while the pictures are the same, the captions are different. Mine reads: 413 Pack Train, Canadian Rockies. The museum’s reads: 601 Packtrain at Bow Lake. Hmmm, it seems that there has been some repurposing of images here.