When my great aunt, Aunt Jean, died in November 2005, following closely behind Mom, to whom she was close, I was the lucky gal who became the keeper of her photo albums. Aunt Jean, in her turn, had been the lucky gal who got to keep her Aunt Alma's photographs after her aunt passed, and so I now have those, too. I know, I know ... some of us have all the luck.

My great-great Aunt Alma was a nurse during the Second World War and worked around the world in that capacity. I have tacked to my office wall a wide-angle portrait of the staff at the Canadian General Hospital in England, taken in 1942. Among many other wonderful photos.

Aunt Alma also worked up in Whitehorse. After reading Pierre Berton's book about the gold rush in the Yukon, the photo above particularly pleases me. The people who went up there to make their fortune were indeed overjoyed to make it over the rapids, and in the photo above (a studio print, about 5" x 7"), the Clifford Sifton's passengers demonstrate their exuberance at making the treacherous journey successfully. Many hundreds of hopefuls did not survive it, whether they went by land or sea.

I have a good number of these old sepia-toned photos and, not wanting them to languish on a shelf unseen for the next 40 years, many months ago I contacted the McBride Museum in Whitehorse and offered to send scans so they could tell me whether they'd be interested in my making a gift of the photographs.

I've only just gotten around to doing the scanning; but now I'm having second thoughts about giving the photos away. There are some I'd like to frame and display on a wall, especially since I am soon to have more wall space. (If we ever get that far; gee, this subdivision process is dragging. It's been over four months already.) And, I haven't yet asked all my relatives if they'd like to have any of these pictures, either.

If you're reading this, cousins, and you're interested, get in touch.

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