[Album of photographs of whaling and trading voyages.]

TRADING IN THE ARCTIC: C.T. PEDERSEN, ROALD AMUNDSEN, JOHNNIE JOHNS

105 photographs in various formats & sizes, most taken by Levy, some by Alaskan studios (some of the larger ones are copy prints), most captioned in typescript or ms. Folio string-tied album (370 by 310mm). A little chipped and rubbed, some loosely inserted photographs and ephemera. Bering Sea, Alaska & Yukon, 1920s to

An excellent, substantial album compiled by Aaron Levy, who was attached to Christian Theodore Pedersen's (1876-1969) expeditions in the 1920s.

 

Pedersen was born in Norway and was just 17 when he embarked on his first whaling voyage. His first command was of the schooner Challenge  in 1908 which overwintered on Herschel Island, and he later assisted Vilhjalmur Stefansson with the Canadian Arctic Expedition. His main employment was as a whaler and fur trader, which occupy much of the material here. After nearly ten years working for the H. Liebes Company, he set up business on his own under the name of Northern Whaling and Trading Company with the schooner Ottillie Fjord. He set up trading posts through the Kitikmeot region and leased small schooners to trappers.

 

This album documents those years and opens with images of ships belonging to H. Liebes Company, several under Pedersen's command. M.S. Hermann (at St Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea); M.S. Nanuk (waiting for the ice to open near Barrow); M.S. Patterson, and M.S. Nigalik; plus the wreck of M.S. Arctic, crushed by the ice near Point Barrow in 1924.

 

We see shots of Unalaska, Cliff dwellers on King Island, Herschel Island, and Diomede Island (both Russian and American). In addition, there is much on whaling, hunting walrus, a dramatic image of blasting through sea ice in the Bering Sea, and gruesome shots of naval discipline. Turning to the Yukon, we see much centred on the fur trade, shots of hunting of caribou, moose, grizzly bears, and mountain sheep as well as trading posts. These were taken at Kluane Lake, the Bear Creek, the Donjak glacier, Champagne and Atlin. 

 

There are charming portraits too: of Pedersen and his wife "dressed in their Arctic best"; Levy himself; Jimmie Scaw Yale; the famous guide Johnnie Johns; plus a number of unidentified Native Alaskans. There's even a picture of Roald Amundsen and Pedersen together at Wainwright, Alaska. At that time Amundsen was on his 1918-25 Maud expedition and there's also an image of the ship.

 

Among the ephemera is a revealing, and off-putting, letter written to the Levy family by an A. Cormer in San Francisco asking to "procure for me a girl of the age of 11 to 13 and send her down to San Francisco ... The girl is to aid my sister in the care of my aged mother, and she will be well taken care of and her education attended to as far as is practicable ... I would prefer a Russian or a half Breed to a pure native."

 

Aside from him becoming a fur trader and captain in his own right, little is known of Levy. This album is a valuable document of life in the Arctic in the early twentieth century.

 

Stock Code: 245318