Copying People: Photographing British Columbia First Nations, 1860-1940

Before the west was widely settled, photographs provided the first glimpse white society had of the aboriginal people who occupied the hinterlands of the continent. Copying People - a phrase borrowed from the Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands that means "camera" - is a collection of historical photographs chosen from the vast number of images in museums and archives across North America.  Taken by professional photographers, surveyors, anthropologists, civil servants, and tourists, these fascinating images show how early non-Native photographers "pictured" First Nations people and influenced the outside world's perceptions of them.
Covering all of British Columbia, the book represents the work of every important photographer dealing with aboriginal people in the province before World war II.  With 140 archival images, Copying People offers a privileged glimpse of British Columbia's original inhabitants.