1930 Swannell survey station brass bolt, Ingenika Crag
Viewing Frank Swannell's Published Photos Online
BC Archives has published over 4000 of Swannell's photos on its website as of 2009. To view these photos online,
1. Go to the British Columbia Archives website at www.bcarchives.bc.ca.
2. Click on the Search link.
3. Basic Search, Step 1: Choose Visual Records.
4. Basic Search, Step 2: Type a search string in the search box; click the Start Search button.
5. If you want a larger picture, click on the thumbnail.
Viewing Swannell's Unpublished Photos
at BC Archives
Approximately 300 photographs that Swannell took between 1908 and 1914 remain unpublished and cannot be accessed online. If you are interested in viewing or purchasing any unpublished photographs, you must do so in person at the BC Archives. If you purchase an unpublished photograph, the Archives will scan that picture when they produce your copy and post the picture on its website.
Here are a few ways to locate unpublished photographs:
Finding Aid: Swannell wrote a Finding Aid, available at the BC Archives, that is organized by topic so you can search for a photo and find its accession number. Swannell gave all of his photos his own accession numbers, ranging from SW 901 to SW5172.
Journals: Swannell's journals at the BC Archives are illustrated with copies of his photographs. Some of these pictures have not been published yet. The photographs often include the accession numbers.
Loose Pictures: A few boxes of loose pictures are stored in the Archives. Some boxes are organized by accession number, while others are arranged by topic. For example, the 1913 photograph of Kispiox Margaret with her baby sitting on their supplies was found in these loose pictures.
When Swannell used his camera he often took a group of pictures. There is no evident pattern as to which groups have been published and which remain unpublished. For example, Swannell took photographs of Prince Rupert in 1909 that have been published, while his 1913 pictures of that city remain unpublished.
Unfortunately there is not a chronological list of all the Swannell photographs. The author is currently developing a database which will document these photographs and note the ones that are still unpublished. If you would like more information about the unpublished photographs and how to access them, please e-mail the author: jaysherwood@surveyingbc.ca.