UBC To Post Thousands of Rare Photos

A unique collection of rare photos from British Columbia’s past has recently been donated to University of British Columbia Library. They are images from a bygone era, a time when prospectors and fortune hunters scraped out a living amidst the forests and valleys of the Pacific coast. Many of these photos are the only remaining images of communities and people who have long since disappeared.

Uno Langmann, a Vancouver art dealer, had been collecting the photos since he first arrived in BC from Denmark in 1955. Langmann donated the $1.2-million dollar collection to the library in the hope it will be viewed and appreciated by a wider audience.

“They had to get a home, and I felt that the best place would be UBC,” said Langmann. “I wanted to get it out to the people, they are going to be digitized and they will be everywhere.”

Work has already begun to process the collection —18,000 photos spanning from the 1850s until the 1970s. UBC plans to digitally scan each photo and offer the collection online for free. University librarian Ingrid Parent eagerly anticipated working with the photos. “We knew he had this collection he was building,” said Parent. “We were hoping, at some point, that he would decide to donate it.”

Some 600 photos have been uploaded so far, and the library has already received requests by scholars and students to work with the collection. The library hopes to hold physical exhibitions outside the campus if it can obtain funding for a tour. “In this collection there are photographs that people didn't even know existed, it’s going to really improve how we see our history and interpret it,” said Parent.

For Langmann, the photos put faces on the past of his adopted province — they captured the hardships of early pioneers who survived in British Columbia. “The Prairies and up to the Rockies was very well kept, and you had connections to the East,” said Langmann, referring to nineteenth century overland transportation systems. “But once they got to the Rockies it really stopped. British Columbia was more or less left on its own until the Royal Engineers came — how far they were from civilization is just incredible.”

The photos will be available for viewing on the UBC Library website in the summer of 2014. The university hopes to have the entire collection up within the year.