Capturing Time

Harriet Elizabeth Hunt (1865-1934)
        Photographer

The Hunt family was instrumental in turning Ketchikan from a smattering of shacks on the beach into a city. Harriet Hunt, one of the first female photographers in the Territory of Alaska, documented this transformation.

Ms. Hunt's family, the Frosts, traveled west by wagon train in 1844, surviving robberies and attacks along the way and eventually becoming one of the first families in Washington state. Her husband Forest's father served in the Civil War. The two met when Mr. Hunt was teaching in Washington, and soon after moved to Alaska to capitalize on the gold rush.

In Ketchikan, they started a store, in front of which their pet black bear is reported to have waited. Ms. Hunt also founded a bookstore, photo studio, gallery, and the library board. She was so social, it is said, that she would greet the visitors as they came off boats and, before long, they'd all be trading stories. Mr. Hunt served on the city council, as mayor, and on the Territorial Legislature. He made headlines in the 1920s by urging the federal government to clean up the "vice ridden" and "wicked" city of Ketchikan.

Harriet and Forest had five children, many of whose descendants still live in Ketchikan to this day. A local lake is named after her, and her collection of photographs lives on in the museum, as do her numerous contributions to town.

Additional photographers featured in this exhibit

• Con Giebel (1878-1965)
  
• Benjamin Alfred Haldane (1874-1941)
  
• David Nicoll (1877-1937)
  
• Alfred Milotte (1904-1989)
  
• Otto C. Schallerer (1884-1968)
  
• Hall Anderson (1949- )
  
• Paulu T. Saari (1919-2011)