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Abstract: This article offers an ethnographic and anthropological investigation of historical photography carried out in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta. I recount my attempts to precisely retake a photograph from its historical location. Once there, I scrutinize photography's presences to better understand how a photograph emerges as an event. Photography can be used to understand human-wind encounters, the force of effort, the conventions that shape place, the impact of available water and how these come to bear on visibility and invisibility, life and death, in the present.
Keywords: photography, archives, national parks, posthumanism, International Boundary Commission, G. M. Dawson, Canada
Résumé: Cet article concerne ma recherche ethnographique et anthropologique sur la photographie historique du Parc national Waterton Lakes en Alberta. Je relate mon attention à reproduire avec le plus d'exactitude possible une photographie dans sa localisation originale. De là, j'examine ce qui est présent dans l'image afin de mieux comprendre comment une photographie appert tel un événement. La photographie peut être utilisée pour déchiffrer les rencontres entre l'humain et le vent, pour mieux saisir la force de l'effort, les conventions qui se matérialisent, et l'impact de l'eau. Il s'agit d'apprécier comment ces facteurs touchent, au moment présent, le visible et l'invisible, la vie et la mort.
Mots-clés: photographie, archives, parc nationaux, post-humain, Commission de la frontière internationale, G. M. Dawson, Canada
Introduction
In the 1885 Canadian Militia Gazette, an anonymous writer proposes that "circumstances alter photographs" (Greenhill and Birrell 1979:116). Taking this statement as a starting point, I investigate the visual practices of the 1873-74 International Boundary Commission by focusing on one photograph, taken inside present-day Waterton Lakes National Park, a federally protected area in western Canada. Two aims inspire this article. First, I recount my attempt to return to the exact location of Figure 1 to re-photograph it. I walk with this archival document to scrutinize photography's presences and to better understand how a photograph emerges as an event. Through extensive ethnographic and anthropological research (2002-present) of historical photography in Waterton-including abundant time loitering in the park with archival photographs in hand-I find photography is "relationally entangled rather than taxonomically neat" (Haraway 2008:105). Photography can be used to understand human-wind encounters, the force of effort, the conventions that shape place, the impact of...