The Official Picture: The National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division and the Image of Canada, 1941–1971

Arctic images in context

“…In addition to his commissioned magazine work, Harrington took photographs for government departments, who were interested in documenting government attendance in the Canadian North, and for the National Film Board of Canada's Still Photography Division who at this time "solidified its position as a central organ of an 'official' idealized version of Canada" and looked northwards in its distinct nationalist vision. 3 Moreover, the passage testifies to the increased awareness of and interest in the region as an inhabited land and as a site of human activity, also evident when looking at picture stories on the Canadian Arctic in magazines such as Maclean's and the Beaver from the period. Like these picture stories, The Face of the Arctic is primarily focused on the people of the Canadian Arctic -only two of the travelogue's 161 black-and-white photographs show landscape without people or traces of people -presenting the Arctic as a site of human presence and activity.…”