Early Alaska photographs: Cartes de Visite (CDV).

Welcome to my personal photograph collection.
These original photographs are NOT for sale.

Do you need 'one time use' of Alaska historical photographs for your research or publication?
For a fee I will provide access (like a stock photo agency) to the images in my extensive private collection, which is particularly strong in Alaska photographs from the 1870's through the 1880's.
Many of these important images have been acquired over a lifetime of intensive collecting, and can be found nowhere else.
The fee depends on what you need the image for or the nature of the publication.

As time permits I will add the titles of images in my collection. I have especially strong holdings of Brodeck, Ingersoll, Partridge, Davidson, McIntyre, Broadbent, Continent Stereoscopic, etc.

CDV of whaling captain Horace M. Newbury, wearing full arctic gear (seal skin parka with hood, caribou fur pants, mukluks, mitts) and holding a double-barreled percussion-cap shotgun. His fur pants are especially fancy. "Photographed by Giles Bishop, 22 State Street, New London, Conn". From a New London, Connecticut, estate. Horace Newbury's whaling ship Paiea was one of the 32 vessels destroyed by ice in the famous Northern Alaska whaling disaster of 1871. He and 1218 others were rescued and made it out to Hawaii before winter set in. In later years Horace Newbury was known in Groton, Connecticut, as an amateur doctor.

Original CDV of "Khanalpooginuk" (a.k.a. Khanal pooginuk), the Wandering Koryak, who is mentioned in Tent Life in Siberia by George Kennan (Russian-American Telegraph Expedition)

"Just as Viushin was filling up our cups for the third time, the skin curtain of the low doorway at our side was lifted up, and the most extraordinary figure which I ever beheld in Kamchatka crawled silently in, straightened up to its full height of six feet, and stood majestically before us. It was an ugly, dark-featured man about thirty years of age. He was clothed in a scarlet dress-coat with blue facings and brass buttons, with long festoons of gold cord hung across the breast, trousers of black, greasy deerskin, and fur boots. His hair was closely shaven from the crown of his head, leaving a long fringe of lank, uneven locks hanging about his ears and forehead. Long strings of small coloured beads depended from his ears, and over one of them he had plastered for future use a huge quid of masticated tobacco. About his waist was tied a ragged sealskin thong, which supported a magnificent silver-hilted sword and embossed scabbard. His smoky, unmistakably Korak face, shaven head, scarlet coat, greasy skin trousers, gold cord, sealskin belt, silver-hilted sword, and fur boots, made up such a remarkable combination of glaring contrasts that we could do nothing for a moment but stare at him in utter _amazement_. He reminded me of "Talipot, the Immortal Potentate of Manacabo, Messenger of the Morning, Enlightener of the Sun, Possessor of the Whole Earth, and Mighty Monarch of the Brass-handled Sword."

"Who are you?" suddenly demanded the Major, in Russian. A low bow was the only response. "Where in the name of Chort did you come from?" Another bow. "Where did you get that coat? Can't you say something? Ay! Meranef! Come and talk to this--fellow, I can't make him say anything." Dodd suggested that he might be a messenger from the expedition of Sir John Franklin, with late advices from the Pole and the North-west Passage, and the silent owner of the sword bowed affirmatively, as if this were the true solution of the mystery. "Are you a pickled cabbage?" suddenly inquired Dodd in Russian. The Unknown intimated by a very emphatic bow that he was. "_He_ doesn't understand anything!" said Dodd in disgust; "where's Meranef?" Meranef soon made his appearance, and began questioning the mysterious visitor in a scarlet coat as to his residence, name, and previous history. For the first time he now found a voice. "What does he say?" asked the Major; "what's his name?"

"He says his name is Khanalpooginuk."

"Where did he get that coat and sword?"

"He says 'the Great White Chief' gave it to him for a dead reindeer." This was not very satisfactory, and Meranef was instructed to get some more intelligible information. Who the "Great White Chief" might be, and why he should give a scarlet coat and a silver-hilted sword for a dead reindeer, were questions beyond our ability to solve. Finally, Meranef's puzzled face cleared up, and he told us that the coat and sword had been presented to the Unknown by the Emperor, as a reward for reindeer given to the starving Russians of Kamchatka during a famine. The Korak was asked if he had received no paper with these gifts, and he immediately left the tent, and returned in a moment with a sheet of paper tied up carefully with reindeer's sinews between a couple of thin boards. This paper explained everything. The coat and sword had been given to the present owner's father, during the reign of Alexander I., by the Russian Governor of Kamchatka as a reward for succour afforded the Russians in a famine. From the father they had descended to the son, and the latter, proud of his inherited distinction, had presented himself to us as soon as he heard of our arrival. He wanted nothing in particular except to show himself, and after examining his sword, which was really a magnificent weapon, we gave him a few bunches of tobacco and dismissed him. We had hardly expected to find in the interior of Kamchatka any relics of Alexander I., dating back to the time of Napoleon."