When Chow Dong Hoy emigrated to Canada in 1902, he began a life's work of putting the people of the Central Interior inside the frames of time. Now the masterful Cariboo photographer is being once again put into focus himself.
Canada Post's stamp series depicting the works of Canada's best photographers of the last 150 years has one of Hoy's portraits. This stamp was released on Monday and will soon be attached to parcels and letters, and filed in collections, all over the country.
Hoy - known in the Cariboo as Charlie and remembered professionally as C.D. - was born in 1883 and died in 1973. He was Barkerville's premier resident photographer from the day he arrived there in 1909, and it is there his extensive collection is held in the historic archives. Although he went on to significant business accomplishments in the Quesnel area, he became renowned for his technically sound photography skills and for his keen eye for human subject matter. Counter to mainstream social norms early in the 20th century, he went to great efforts to capture Chinese, aboriginal and female subjects. It created an irreplaceable record of Central Interior B.C. life in that dynamic era.
A book on Hoy by Faith Moosang - First Son, Portraits by C.D. Hoy - became a bestseller. His images were gathered into a powerful outreach exhibition into Hong Kong and China this past year attempting to identify family of the Chinese immigrants and sojourners to gold rush-era Barkerville. Now Canada Post is putting Hoy's work on another public platform.
"We knew that a series of this magnitude would require a high level of knowledge in Canadian photography and would need to depict a diversity of vision -- be it age, gender, ethnicity," said Canada Post spokeswoman Brittany Fontaine. "So we put together an ad-hoc team of photography curators from some of the country's finest museums and galleries, and other experts. Together that team selected 35 of the top photographers in the last 150 years, and then went on to select work that would be representative of that particular artist. That's how we met up with the work of C.D. Hoy."
The image chosen for the stamp was one of his signatures - a close portrait of a Chinese subject, circa 1912. The man in the frame is posed, but Hoy's shot has him looking casual with a cigarette or cigar in one hand and eyes off the lens so it has a slightly candid atmosphere. He is neatly groomed, dressed in a three-piece suit with heeled shoes and pocket-watch chain across his vest. The background is a wash of Chinese writing and other items evocative of the Chinese experience in Barkerville at that point in history.
"The goal of all the stamps in the Canadian stamp program, including this series -- beyond providing the means of sending mail -- is to celebrate Canadian culture: the people, the places, the events and the achievements that make us who we are," said Fontaine. "There have always been heroes among us, even if in their time, they worked in obscurity. Those are the people you find on our stamps."
Fontaine gave significant thanks to Mandy Kilsby of the Barkerville Library and Archives for helping
facilitate the C.D. Hoy image in the stamp series.
Seven photos are featured in the new edition of this Canada Post stamp series. Canada Post is unveiling new versions over a five year time period, this being the second. This latest batch features iconic works by: Edward Burtynsky, Lynne Cohen, Fred Herzog, Michel Lambeth, William Notman, Louis-Prudent Valle and Hoy.
The stamps are available in booklets of 10 domestic stamps ($8.50), and booklets of six for U.S. denominations ($7.20) and international denominations ($11.10).
