objective dimension which gives photographs their affective quality as well. Verisimilitude, though, is a siren’s call. It is only the promise of objectivity that photographs provide. Like writing, they are radically open to interpretation and refuse to allow their meaning to be fixed.
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Lorraine Daston has written that “The miracle of photography, of its so-called objective image, is that it reveals a radically non-objective world. It is a paradox that the lack of objectivity of the world is disclosed by the photographic lens.”3 This is precisely the point taken up by Michael Barnholden’s new book, Circumstances Alter Photographs. It offers a riposte to popular nationalist framings of the Riel Rebellion, or as Barnholden terms it, the War of 1885. Barnholden’s book details the photographic output of James Peters, a captain of the Royal Canadian Artillery’s “A” Battery. Peters’ force was part of the North West Field Force, tasked with quelling the Métis rebellion. Astonishingly, Peters was the first person in history to capture battlefield photographs under fire. The astonishing aspect of this is not that Peters was the first to do this – photographic technology had developed to the point where this honour was merely a matter of time and opportunity – but that his photographs do not loom larger in the national imaginary. Indeed, after reading Barnholden’s account, one cannot help but feel Peters’ photographs are missing piece in Canadian history. His book presents an alternative conception of the Riel Rebellion; one that highlights the corporatist nature of Canadian politics and the role of the CPR, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the North West Mounted Police had in the formation of a federalist metanarrative. I sat down with Barnholden to discuss some of these issues: garrett peck:
Why haven’t these photographs been
seen before? michael barnholden:
You look at these photos and you try to piece together a narrative. And, you know, whoever is taking these photographs, literally, has a point of view. And I think that’s the problem with Peters’ photographs. They didn’t tell the right
story, and so they were ignored for 50-60 years until the birth, or re-birth of Canadian nationalism – CanLit nationalism. And people start looking at these images, but they can’t fit them into a nationalist narrative because almost every one of them subverts that narrative. It wasn’t just a Métis rebellion. And this is the other thing that these pictures show. There’s this second half where you see the Indian tribes, the Cree under Poundmaker along with Miserable Man. And that connection has been severed in many ways, and you can see the political reason for that. You don’t want a coalition there. But the other interesting thing is that the white folks were supportive as well. I mean, it wasn’t a racialized discontent; they simply didn’t like what was happening to the place they were living. And what was happening was that the place was being turned into a corporate state where corporations such as the CPR were given tremendous advantages. There’s a great quote you use from the Quebec Morning Chronicle: “The real history of how the Canadian rebellion was crushed has yet to be written. It will be read like a romance from the days of chivalry.” Right. That’s the type of narrative that people tried to impose on these photographs and the photographs resisted that. And that’s the only explanation that I can come up with for why no one did this [project] 25 years ago. It contradicts this notion that people have about this event and its place in Canadian history. And part of that is taking on claims made by people like John Ralston Saul, who says that Canada is a Métis nation. It’s absurd. And then you have comments like [Prime Minister] Harper’s, where he recently said that Canada is not a colonial nation. That comment really raised the hackles on a lot of people. To me that’s like not even looking around, you don’t have to be a serious historian to see this. You almost have to wilfully disregard things.