Sliding Down the Timber Chute: Photographing Erasure during the 1901 British Royal Tour of Canada (April 2021)
In November 1901, The Canadian Magazine prominently featured a reproduction of William McFarlane Notman’s photograph The Royal Party Shooting the Timber Slide (figure 1).1 Taking up an entire page of the issue, a halftone reproduction of the photograph was included as part of the magazine’s extensive coverage of the 1901 British royal tour of Canada. The image shows the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, soon to be King George V and Queen Mary, in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, perched atop a large wooden raft, or crib, with their sizable entourage. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the timber chute had been an entirely practical, and somewhat ubiquitous, device for moving timber down rapids. The event of royals riding the chute transformed this tool into spectacle. The crib, which appears to be moving rapidly, is about halfway down the visible waterway and spans the width from shore to shore. While the crowds on either side, as well as the rushing water, bubble with excitement, the royal party looks almost unnaturally steady and composed. The calmly seated duke and duchess signal safety and assurance in both the chute and those steering them down its rushing waters.
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