Niagara Falls, 1840
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Besides the Canadian Mounties and the maple leaf, what could be more iconic of Canada than Niagara Falls? So it is fitting that the first photograph of Canada is of the Niagara Falls. And it is!
This image of Niagara Falls was discovered twelve years ago in a box at Newcastle University in England. The box, marked “Daguerrotypes,” had been languishing on a shelf in Special Collections since 1926, when it was given to the library by descendants of British industrialist Hugh Lee Pattinson. Then a student of the early form of photography just perfected by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, Pattinson was in Canada on a business trip when he stopped at the Falls to practice his technique. It took more than twenty minutes for the scene to afx on the silver-coated copper plate inside his camera (widely believed to be the small figure seen to the lower left); afterward, he would envelop the plate in warm mercury fumes, slowly drawing the image to the surface. It must have been thrilling, but no more so than when, a century and half later, historians learned what had been unearthed at Newcastle: the frst photograph ever taken in Canada. (Walrus)