A rare suite of photographs by Frank La Roche, showing daring prospectors, grizzled 'sourdoughs,' and other fortune-seekers who rushed to the Klondike region of Alaska after gold was discovered there...
A rare suite of photographs by Frank La Roche, showing daring prospectors, grizzled "sourdoughs," and other fortune-seekers who rushed to the Klondike region of Alaska after gold was discovered there in 1896.
Titles: Klondike Wagon Loaded with Provisions; Hungry Man’s Retreat at Porcupine Creek, Skagway; Dogs Packing on Dyea Trail; Camp Life at Finnegan’s Point; Packers on Dyea Trail Near Stone House; Dyea River Near Sheep Camp; Near the Summit of Chilkoot Pass; Lake Bennett; Near Stone House, Dyea Trail; Glacier Summit of Chilkoot Pass; In Dyea Canyon.
Frank La Roche was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1853. He began his photography career at seventeen years old when he found a job at a photography studio. In 1876, La Roche was commissioned by the United States and French governments to capture Mercury’s transit in telescopic negatives. Eleven years later, he came to Seattle in the rebuilding period after the great fire of 1889 and opened a first-rate photo studio. Beyond traditional portrait photography, La Roche would take expeditions to photograph the beautiful landscapes of western Washington’s forests, mountains, and rivers; as well as scenes from the major industries of railways, fishing, and logging. He continued this practice and traveled across Alaska at various times at the end of the 1890s to photograph the Klondike Gold Rush. He chronicled his journey in his six volume photographic series, “Enroute to the Klondike.” In 1914, he relocated his studio to Sedro-Wooley, a town just north of Seattle, where lived until his death in 1936.