Beschreibung:

Lot of 740+ items, primarily photographs and celluloid negatives, related to Ralph H. Cairns, the organizer and leader of an expedition party that attempted to climb Mt. McKinley in 1912 with the backing of the Fairbanks Daily Times newspaper in Alaska. Cairns was accompanied by Martin Nash and George S. Lewis. During March and April of 1912, the party traveled across country from Fairbanks, via dog team and established their base camp near the Peters Glacier. The archive includes several photographs and snapshots of the party's journey. Cairns was actually in the same vicinity of the previous base camps of James Wickersham and Dr. Frederick Cook who both made attempts to climb Mt. McKinley in 1903. Although the party did some exploring, severe storms and several difficulties in selecting the appropriate route forced the party to give up the attempt and return to Fairbanks (Pearson, 1953: 20). According to one source, Cairns' party did climb to approx. 9200 ft. on Pioneer Ridge, a long spur of Mt. McKinley's North Peak (Beckey, 1993: 296). The archive features 14 large format silver gelatin photographs, many taken during the expedition, 4.25 x 6.5 in. up to 10 x 16 in., framed and glazed, including the following: 10 photographs, mostly of the Cairns party, journeying across the vast, snow-covered terrain of Alaska, led by the team of dogs, attempting to make its way up the icy slopes of Mt. McKinley, or ice fishing. One photograph is titled in the negative Fairbanks Alaska Times Expedition off to Scale Mt. McKinley. / Taken from just below Chena, signed and dated in negative by Mrs. Robertson, Feb. 1912. There are three additional photographs of Alaskan towns, including two of Ruby City and one of Skagway's main street. Also included is an image of a team of howling dogs surrounded by nothing but snow, titled A Malamute Chorus, and signed by the Lomen Bros. in the negative; plus a charming hand-colored portrait of a child bundled up in a fur coat, titled Mickey in the negative. The lot also features 90+ unmounted silver gelatin photographs, 3.5 x 5.5 in., mostly snapshots of the Cairn expedition, the North American and Alaskan landscape, and Alaskan towns, some identified in negative or include handwritten captions on verso most likely written by Cairns, including images of the following: Walls of ice that, according to Cairns, were not unlikely obstacles to be met by the engineers in the vanguard of the Alaskan Railroad; the party watering the dogs before crossing into Kantishna; the party's main camp; the White Pass Railroad; and scenes of Skagway, among many other images. In addition, the archive includes 600+ celluloid negatives and 2 glass negatives, primarily of Cairns' family and friends as well as landscapes, towns, and vacation shots. Some negatives are from the expedition and have handwritten captions. Along with the photographs and negatives, the archive features a pair of dry, wooden snowshoes, 11 x 68 in.; a fur coat, possibly caribou, with a fur neck, possibly wolf, 48 in. long; a commercially made fur cap, possibly beaver; and a hide with a painted and pyrographed scene of a team of dogs titled In the Land of the Malamute, approx. 36 x 53 in. Also, the collection includes Ralph Cairns' post-expedition diary, dated July 1st, 1912 through August, 1915. At the start of the journal, Cairns briefly describes his journey by boat from Fairbanks, Alaska back to Minnesota, where much of his family lived. Throughout the remainder of the diary, Cairns outlines his day-to-day activities, including working, attending church and social meetings, going to baseball games, writing, painting pictures, and fishing, among other things. Cairns traveled throughout the United States quite often between 1912 and 1915, and it appears that he wrote several newspaper articles during that period of time. Condition: One framed image has crack in glass; scattered staining and toning of photographs; some negatives have become brittle; entrie