This exhibition catalogue introduces historic photographs of Indigenous
peoples of Western Canada from a collection housed at the University of
Alberta's Bruce Peel Special Collections. The publication focuses on the
ancestors represented in the collection and how their images continue to
generate stories and meanings in the present. The selected photographs
contribute to a richer, deeper understanding of the past. There is
strength, character, persistence, determination, humour, artwork, dance,
celebration, and so much more in the photographs. Some serve as records
of cherished landscapes that may have been altered. Others provide links
to ancestors: revered leaders, soldiers, healers, thinkers, and orators.
The curators hope that the process of identifying the people in these
photographs, only begun here, will continue.