Seriously Moving Images

NOTE: This is a sequel to my blog post Vancouver 1914: A. D. Kean and “Range Days”.

On July 3, 1914, the Prospector newspaper of Lillooet, BC, described the two-day local celebrations marking Dominion Day, which had ended the day before. Among its reports on the various races and special events, the paper took particular note of an unusual visitor.

One feature that caused not a little favorable comment was the arrival in our midst of the first moving picture camera ever seen in these parts. The machine was operated by A. D. Kean, the well known Cowboy Photographer of BC, who is operating for the Capital Film Company of Victoria. This company is backed by millionaires, who are British Columbians, and is the first company to be formed for the manufacture of motion pictures of British Columbia’s many attractions.

Kean is highly pleased with the films he has obtained, among which is the first Kloochmans’ race ever secured on the American continent. The bucking contest was also a great success, one rider being “thrown” quite close to the camera, the horse continuing to buck. The films will be exhibited at all the local and provincial Industrial Exhibitions and Fairs.[1]

In the summers of 1914 and 1915, A. D. Kean travelled through the BC Interior to recruit riders and livestock for “Range Days,” the cowboy sports event he organized for the Vancouver Exhibition. He visited the Dominion Day celebrations at LIllooet both years, shooting footage for the Capital Feature Film and BC Weekly Company, an early newsreel outfit based in Victoria.

Unlike much of Kean’s work (which has been lost), footage from one of his Lillooet visits has survived, and the film is preserved at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. I’ve edited the above clip from the extant footage.

Dominion Day event on Lillooet Main Street [between 1912 and 1916] (Item 2020.08.38, Northern BC Archives and Special Collections, UNBC)

[1]       “Lillooet Loyally Celebrates Natal Day,” Prospector [Lillooet], July 3, 1914, 1. The phrase “Klootchmans’ race” refers to a horse race ridden by Indigenous women. This race appears at 0:55-1:14 in the video. The word “klootchman,” from the Chinook trading jargon, denotes an Aboriginal woman or wife. Some sources indicate that it is now considered an offensive or derogatory term.