Historical film about family's backcountry trek through the Yukon rescued from obscurity

For Bob Albee, it was an unexpected and moving experience — to sit in a small theatre in Whitehorse, watching his now-deceased parents and siblings on screen, in a decades-old film that had almost been lost to time. 

"I had tears in my eyes," Albee said, following the well-attended screening last week.

"The joy of watching my folks doing the most important thing in their lives, and seeing that their experience resonated with people watching the film … it was overwhelming." 

The film was made more than 80 years ago when Bob Albee's newlywed parents, Bill and Ruth Albee of California, made an incredible journey: they travelled on foot through hundreds of kilometres of officially uncharted territory in northern B.C. and southern Yukon, with their two young children, aged five and eight — Bob's older siblings — in tow. Bob hadn't been born yet. 

The Albees, sponsored by National Geographic, filmed and photographed much of that 1940 journey. A short documentary film about it, called Family Afoot in the Yukon, was released later that year. 

The film, however, all but disappeared from the public record in the decades that followed. 

Then, in 2022, a volunteer archivist from the Yukon Archives helped rescue it from obscurity, culminating in last week's public screening in Whitehorse. 

A passion for preservation

That volunteer archivist, Richard Lawrence, has a passion for preservation and says he's always on the lookout for old Yukon films. When he learned of a copy of Family Afoot in the Yukon at an online auction — destined for expunction if not sold — he decided to bid on it. 

"Nobody else did," he recalled. 

The story caught his attention. 

"It was about this family walking from Watson Lake to Frances Lake during the summer of 1940 — and this was all pre-[Alaska] Highway," he said. 

"They were actually, in a way, on a mission," Lawrence said, "It wasn't just for the walk."

Lawrence explained that the Albees' journey had been sponsored by National Geographic magazine, as well as Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil, the largest public oil company in the world), as a way to help the Alaska Highway Commission find the best route for the planned highway. The Second World War was underway and the U.S. military planned the highway as a way to help protect its territory in the North.

"Part of the reason why they [the Albees] did this walk was to determine if the [Alaska Highway] route north of Frances Lake onto the Pelly, across to the Yukon River up to Dawson, would have been more favourable… and it was seriously considered," Lawrence said.

In the end, the commission opted for a different route than the one travelled by the Albees, and the film, Family Afoot in the Yukon, is mostly about something else.

'Just another way of life'

Lawrence said in addition to its inherently fascinating historical context, Family Afoot in the Yukon stands out for its focus on the experience of the Albee children, aged five and eight, enjoying a seemingly idyllic life in the bush.

"This story has a ripple effect. It touches so many things," he said. 

The Albees' route took the family from Lower Post, B.C. — where they had to be flown in by bush plane — up to Watson Lake, Yukon. From there, they followed the Frances River to end at Frances Lake, about three months and 500 kilometres later. 

"It was not a common route," Lawrence said, "[They walked] over a lot of terrain that wasn't really very well mapped. And even the First Nations people there said that many people hadn't been over it for decades." 

Though Family Afoot staunchly promotes the feasibility of such an adventure with kids, Bob Albee explained his parents were experienced hikers who knew how to survive in the wilderness.  

"As far as safety and so-forth, they didn't think it was an issue. It was just another way of life," Albee said. 

Search leads to California

The copy of the film that Richard Lawrence first bought at auction was a disappointment. When he received it from the British Film Institute in England, the colour footage had worn out substantially over the decades. 

"When a film sits for too long and is on poor stock, it turns red — it loses its greens and blues and yellows and so on," he explained. 

But Lawrence also knew of the "absolutely beautiful" colour photographs of the Albees' travels that had been published by National Geographic in the same year. He was determined to find a copy of the film in its original colour, if one even existed.   

"That led me down to Carmel, California, and then finally to Olympia, Wash., where Bob [Albee] solved the mystery," he said, explaining that Bob had inherited what was likely the only colour version of the film still available. 

Bob Albee describes the moment he was first contacted by Lawrence as almost magical. 

"It was like a gift from above coming down," he said. "I did want to get it [the film] in the right hands of some sort. When Richard called me, I said, 'You are the guy I want.'" 

'I was just in awe'

A few months later, Bob Albee and his wife Marty travelled from Olympia to attend the screening in Whitehorse. They also brought with them a collection of Bill and Ruth Albee's historic photos from the time, many of which had never before been shown in public.

Whitehorse resident Joy O'Brien, of Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, was also in the audience that evening. She said she'd been drawn by the opportunity to see some rare historical photos of Indigenous people, as few of them would have had cameras in those days, or ever been photographed. 

She said the photos were "amazing."

"I was just in awe of the aura of the First Peoples' faces, because they look so peaceful and happy. They were doing hard work but they looked really content. There's no stress on their face and no worry, you know… none of the things that we're dealing with now," she said. 

"That just brought a lot of joy to my heart."

Bob Albee described how his parents were often dependent on Indigenous peoples' knowledge for survival. 

"They had a lot of respect for their skills, use of local resources and techniques," Bob said. 

O'Brien says what she saw at the screening in Whitehorse emphasized for her the need for education on Indigenous history in the Yukon, and a better understanding of how Indigenous communities were affected by things like the Alaska Highway and increasing development.

"These people were in their element, they were happy and they weren't disturbed. And I thought, 'man this could be a teaching,'" she said. "People need to be educated on the First People before them." 

The Albees also hope that their photographs and Family Afoot in the Yukon continue to find a new audience. The film is now part of the Yukon Archives collection, and Bob Albee says he plans on donating the collection of photographs.