amazement of those watching from
the deck of the ship. He lost some plates and equipment, but returned alive, his sense
of invincibility hardened.
The famous men assembled by the railroad tycoon liked the photographer. He was self-deprecating,
brash, tireless, able to handle the repartee of big egos in tight quarters—and certainly
obsequious without being annoying. He was also sincerely interested in learning from
them. “His earnestness, industry, simplicity and innocence are positively contagious,”
wrote William Phillips, in explaining the most attractive qualities of young Curtis.
Near the end of the Alaskan summer, the ship steered into what appeared to be an abandoned
Tlingit village on Cape Fox—a ghostly place to the Harriman experts. But the empty
village was alive in a way the experts could never know. The artwork, the totem poles
and posts, the masks, the carved raven heads and salmon designs were animate objects
to the Tlingit, each with a power of its own. The scientists took hundreds of artifacts
from the village, to the disgust of John Muir, who felt his shipmates were no better
than common looters. These distinguished scholars would never haul away paintings
and statues from an empty church in Europe. The men were preserving culture, they
insisted, not robbing a village. Plundering a native community was justified as a
rescue for the sake of science; the artifacts were bound for museums in the United
States.
To Grinnell, who’d been brooding for much of the trip, the majestic but strangely
empty site on Cape Fox only confirmed what he’d been saying about the inhabitants
of the big land: their way of life was passing.
Every collision between the native world and modernity was a hopeless mismatch. The
Indians were doomed. And here was all the evidence he needed: a dead village, like
a body still warm to the touch. He confided these concerns to Curtis, who said he
also was appalled that educated and celebrated men would steal so many priceless objects.
Next year, Grinnell said, he planned to return to a place that curious outsiders had
yet to pick apart, to take in a native ceremony on the high plains of Montana, and
to do so in a respectful manner. For centuries, the people who lived where mountain
and prairie came together had gathered during the longest days of the year to praise
the sun. Missionaries and the government’s Indian agents were closing in. The Indians’
central ritual would soon be gone, outlawed like the potlatch. Grinnell was privileged
to witness the ceremony because of his standing among the Blackfeet. He planted an
idea with Curtis: why not see for yourself and get it down for posterity? On the deck
of the ship as it steamed back to Seattle, Grinnell made an offer that would set the
course for the rest of Curtis’s life. “Come with me next year,” he said. “You’ll have
a chance to know Indians.”
The climber: Curtis on Mount Rainier in 1897, from a booklet he published of mountaineering
photos and adventures. (The picture is cropped.)
Two Indians drying bark in the woods of Mount St. Helens. Curtis took this rarely
seen picture in 1898, while on a climbing expedition with the Mazamas.
3. The Big Idea
1900
I N THE SUMMER OF 1900, Curtis boarded the Great Northern Railroad for a trip east to an Indian land
that existed only in the imagination of most Americans. His train chugged through
a long tunnel inside the Cascade Mountains, out past the glacier-scarred indents of
coulee country in central Washington, straight to the rail center of Spokane. From
there the tracks headed north, nearly to the Canadian border, and then east again.
The train huffed across the Rockies of western Montana, up, up, up, straining to straddle
the Continental Divide at Marias Pass, 5,215 feet above sea level, the highest point
of the most northerly of the nation’s transcontinental railroads. Through
the deck of the ship. He lost some plates and equipment, but returned alive, his sense
of invincibility hardened.
The famous men assembled by the railroad tycoon liked the photographer. He was self-deprecating,
brash, tireless, able to handle the repartee of big egos in tight quarters—and certainly
obsequious without being annoying. He was also sincerely interested in learning from
them. “His earnestness, industry, simplicity and innocence are positively contagious,”
wrote William Phillips, in explaining the most attractive qualities of young Curtis.
Near the end of the Alaskan summer, the ship steered into what appeared to be an abandoned
Tlingit village on Cape Fox—a ghostly place to the Harriman experts. But the empty
village was alive in a way the experts could never know. The artwork, the totem poles
and posts, the masks, the carved raven heads and salmon designs were animate objects
to the Tlingit, each with a power of its own. The scientists took hundreds of artifacts
from the village, to the disgust of John Muir, who felt his shipmates were no better
than common looters. These distinguished scholars would never haul away paintings
and statues from an empty church in Europe. The men were preserving culture, they
insisted, not robbing a village. Plundering a native community was justified as a
rescue for the sake of science; the artifacts were bound for museums in the United
States.
To Grinnell, who’d been brooding for much of the trip, the majestic but strangely
empty site on Cape Fox only confirmed what he’d been saying about the inhabitants
of the big land: their way of life was passing.
Every collision between the native world and modernity was a hopeless mismatch. The
Indians were doomed. And here was all the evidence he needed: a dead village, like
a body still warm to the touch. He confided these concerns to Curtis, who said he
also was appalled that educated and celebrated men would steal so many priceless objects.
Next year, Grinnell said, he planned to return to a place that curious outsiders had
yet to pick apart, to take in a native ceremony on the high plains of Montana, and
to do so in a respectful manner. For centuries, the people who lived where mountain
and prairie came together had gathered during the longest days of the year to praise
the sun. Missionaries and the government’s Indian agents were closing in. The Indians’
central ritual would soon be gone, outlawed like the potlatch. Grinnell was privileged
to witness the ceremony because of his standing among the Blackfeet. He planted an
idea with Curtis: why not see for yourself and get it down for posterity? On the deck
of the ship as it steamed back to Seattle, Grinnell made an offer that would set the
course for the rest of Curtis’s life. “Come with me next year,” he said. “You’ll have
a chance to know Indians.”
The climber: Curtis on Mount Rainier in 1897, from a booklet he published of mountaineering
photos and adventures. (The picture is cropped.)
Two Indians drying bark in the woods of Mount St. Helens. Curtis took this rarely
seen picture in 1898, while on a climbing expedition with the Mazamas.
3. The Big Idea
1900
I N THE SUMMER OF 1900, Curtis boarded the Great Northern Railroad for a trip east to an Indian land
that existed only in the imagination of most Americans. His train chugged through
a long tunnel inside the Cascade Mountains, out past the glacier-scarred indents of
coulee country in central Washington, straight to the rail center of Spokane. From
there the tracks headed north, nearly to the Canadian border, and then east again.
The train huffed across the Rockies of western Montana, up, up, up, straining to straddle
the Continental Divide at Marias Pass, 5,215 feet above sea level, the highest point
of the most northerly of the nation’s transcontinental railroads. Through
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