Indian Grave Houses, Skeena River

In 1926, Holgate and Jackson accompanied Marius Barbeau to the territory of the Gitxsans of the Upper Skeena Valley, in northwestern British Columbia, to produce images for promoting tourism to what was apparently the most photographed site in the country after Niagara Falls. In this view of the cemetery of Gitanmaax, a woman stoops meditatively before the three burial huts in the foreground. The imposing “mineral mountain” Stekyawden, the site of a prosperous mining industry, is silhouetted against the background.