Byron Harmon Photos
Pioneering photographer Byron Hill Harmon (1876-1942) moved from Tacoma, Washington to Banff, Alberta, opening Banff’s first photography studio in 1906. At this time, very few people owned photographic equipment and even fewer were capable of transporting cumbersome equipment over rough terrain, so picture postcards offered an extremely popular alternative. A successful entrepreneur who owned several businesses and an active member of the community, Harmon is best remembered for his stunning photographs of the Canadian Rockies that he published in a variety of formats. Donated by Graham O’Connor in 2021, this collection includes photographs, photo postcards, souvenir booklets, greeting cards, and books created and published by Harmon himself and by subsequent generations of his family.
Access: The materials in this collection are not individually listed in the University of Alberta Library catalogue, but the collection can be explored using the online finding aid.
Exhibitions: The Harmon collection enhances the photographic materials housed in Bruce Peel Special Collections (some of which are featured in an award-winning online Photographies exhibition) and Peel’s extensive Prairie Postcard collection, featured in two past exhibitions (2011 and 2016-17).
Online: Some postcards are available digitally as a part of the Prairie Postcard collection on the Internet Archive.
Related collections include the Byron Harmon fonds at the University of Calgary's Archives & Special Collections, several Harmon collections at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, and Carole Harmon's Byron Harmon Photos website.
Collection Formats: 20th Century, 21st Century, Photographs, Postcards -- click to see other collections with this format
Photo postcards featuring the Canadian Rockies (FC 219 H26 1.1.1).
Photo of Lake Louise with Mount Lefroy and Victoria Glacier in background, taken by Don Harmon from Chateau Lake Louise. A sample from The Canadian Rockies in Natural Color, a set of postcards published by Byron Harmon Photos (FC 219 H26 File 5.1.5).
The Canadian Rockies: Banff, Lake Louise and Field Districts: A Series of 28 Exclusive Views Printed in Vandyck Photogravure. Photography by Byron Harmon. Banff: Harmon, 1920 (FC 219 H26 File 3.1).
Cover and a postcard featuring "The Three Sisters" from The Canadian Rockies: A Series of Eighteen Hand Colored Vandyck Photogravures. Photography by Byron Harmon. Banff: Harmon, 1925 (FC 219 H26 File 3.2).
Photo postcard featuring Chateau Lake Louise. Photographer Carole Harmon. Banff: Altitude publishing, 2003 (FC 219 H26 File 9.1.3).
Postcard packages produced by Byron Harmon (FC 219 H26 series 2).