Alaska As We Saw It [cover title].

Los Angeles: Criswell-Adams Travel Service, [1927]. Photo album (18.5 x 28 cm), pebbled black leather, cord at spine, gilt title on front cover, gilt stamp in lower left corner of front cover reading “Dr. E. O. Hay Compliments of Criswell-Adams Travel Service Los Angeles.” 250 mounted photos and real photo postcards (7 x 9 cm to 11.5 x 16 cm), 11 photomechanical postcards (9 in color) on 52 leaves. The majority of photos captioned in the negative or bearing manuscript captions.

A substantial photo album documenting a tour up the west coast through Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Vancouver, B.C, and Victoria, B.C to Alaska, Dawson City, Yukon Territory, and the Canadian Rockies.

This album was compiled by one Dr. E. O. Hay as a member of an excursion organized by the Criswell-Adams Travel Service of Los Angeles, as indicated by a stamp in the lower left corner of the front cover, and includes a rich variety of images. Photos taken in Dawson feature a gold-mining site at French Hill; the mining city itself and its inhabitants; a gargantuan gold dredger; hydraulic mining activity; “Old Inn,” where a man and his sons and dog stand outside; a shot of Hootalinqua (a popular gathering site for trade and visiting between the Tlingit and Southern and Northern Tutchone peoples), and so on. Pictured bodies of water include the Yukon River, Five Fingers Rapids, Lake Atlin, Porcupine River, Koyukuk River, etc. Images from the Yukon River feature docks, “fish wheels,” “ore barges,” vessels, and one scene of a crowded dock. One shot taken in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory shows a water-wagon being drawn by a dog who is accompanied by an adolescent boy.

A handful of images feature Native American and Eskimo content: igloos; a striking elevated “Indian burial house”; an Eskimo lancing a bowhead whale; an Indian fish camp on the Yukon river; and one copy photo of Indian chiefs. Indian totem poles are pictured in Wrangel, Alaska, Vancouver, Jasper National Park, Alberta, and Alert Bay, British Columbia. One intriguing photo captures what appears to be a makeshift Indian saloon where a handful of Native Americans are seated; the caption on the verso reads, “Indian Cache, Little Saloon, Y.T.” Many dogs are pictured, including a 17-dog racing team; a mail team of dogs; a lovable husky; little husky pups (each valued $100); and one scene of a pup kissing an older husky, captioned in the negative “kiss me papa.” Also represented are such animals as Alaskan Caribou, Reindeer, Bull Yaks, Polar Bears and Kenaia dogs. One shot features the fledgling Alaska College of Agriculture and School of Mining in Fairbanks, which was the first university established in Alaska.

Other locales include Miles Canyon, the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Fraser River, the Copper River, and Juneau, Alaska. Many glaciers are pictured, such as the Spencer, Miles, Child’s, and Taku glaciers. Mountains shown include Mt. McKinley, Mt. Atlin, Mt. Erebus and Mt. Robson. Various scenes in the Arctic Circle and at Fort Yukon are included, the latter populated by a mission building, U.S. radio building, church, memorial hospital, and cemetery. One stunning shot captures “The Loop” of the Alaska Railroad nestled in a valley of the Yukon Mountains. Other railroads are pictured, as well as the million-dollar Copper River Bridge that runs across the Copper River. One image shows the Healey River “coal vains” in Anchorage, Alaska. Two fascinating time-lapse photos capture the midnight sun at the Arctic Circle, the sun shown at various positions on the horizon like a string of white bulbs.

The album also includes many images of rural, harbor, and city scenes and tourist destinations in Portland, OR, Seattle, Stanley Park, Vancouver, and Victoria.

An engaging album documenting a west coast tour two decades after the Yukon Gold Rush.

CONDITION: Covers heavily worn with losses at edges; photos generally good, some creasing and light wear, several photos missing from boards.