Don Harmon

1917 - 1997

A navigator who became a photographer

Youngest of Byron and Maude Harmon’s three children, and my father, Don was born January 9, 1917 and grew up in Banff, in the Canadian Rockies. His life path was changed by World War 2. It had been his father’s intention that his older brother, Lloyd, would carry on the family tradition of photography and film; to that end Lloyd was sent to Hollywood to study film-making, and followed this career before war broke out and he enlisted. Don was expected to learn pharmacy and spent the same winter in Los Angeles, miserably working in a drugstore.

Saved by the RCAF

When Don enlisted in the RCAF he hoped to become a pilot. In one of the placement exams he spotted a trick question and was assigned as navigator. He was in basic training in Montreal, in 1942, when news of his father’s death reached him. Subsequently stationed in Yorkshire, with 424 then 432 Air Squadrons, Don flew 32 bomber missions over the continent. I found an account of his service, and that of his brother Lloyd, on the amazing website, Aircraft Accidents in Yorkshire.

Falling in Love

While on leave in Edinburgh, Don met a young Scots lass, Norah McGill, at a tea dance. They married on October 16, 1944. When he was decommissioned and sent home, in 1945, Norah followed on a troopship with other war brides.

They Were Now the Next Generation

Returned from the war, their father dead, the Harmon siblings faced the challenge of continuing the business left by their father in a town and economy brought to a standstill by the war in Europe. They inherited Harmons, a commercial building in downtown Banff, which contained a drugstore, gift-shop, fountain lunch and photo studio. It was the only property owned by their father which had not been sold to pay taxes after Byron died.

Surprisingly, it was Don who took over day to day operations of the business after the war but also learned how to do the darkroom work needed to produce his father’s photos for sale, retaining the name Byron Harmon Photos. Aileen became his business partner but primarily continued her career as a naturalist with Parks Canada. Lloyd left Banff to work for Dome Petroleum.

Today Harmons is a municipally and provincially listed heritage building at 111 and 113 Banff Avenue which is still owned and managed by the Harmon family.

Don Takes Up Photography

Don began photographing with his father’s 5 x 7 and 4 x 5 large format cameras in the 1950’s. Initially he travelled by bus, until he could afford a car. He could see that the future of scenic photography lay in the new technology of colour film and mechanical reproduction of images. In 1957 he took a course in large format colour landscape photography at Brooks Institute of Photography in Montecito, CA. The following summer he began, in earnest, to follow in his father's footsteps as a photographer.

Although much of the imagery needed for a tourist business consists of views easily reached by car, he kept alive his father's practice of photographing beyond the beaten trail, always including photographs of wilderness beauty spots in his postcards, viewbooks and calendars.

Photographic Forays

When I was a teenager I often accompanied Dad on his photographic forays. At that time I had no intention of being a photographer myself, but on camping trips I carried the food, camp stove, some of his photo gear—whatever I could to help lighten his load. I was a modern pack horse. We never carried a tent but slept under the stars.

His favourite time to photograph was first light; he drove the highways in darkness in order to set up his 4 x 5 camera and capture the first rays of sunlight on mountains reflected in still turquoise lakes, before morning breezes rippled their surface.

Colour Comes to the Rockies

In the late 1950’s Don began publishing colour lithographed postcards, calendars and large format “viewbooks”; he was the first in the Canadian Rockies to do so. Initially he worked with Mike Roberts Colour Production in Berkeley, CA.. Mike Roberts, himself a photographer, has been called “America’s Postcard King”.When the technology reached Canada, Don switched to Grant-Mann of Vancouver for his reproduction.

In the 1970’s he worked with an Irish company, John Hinde Limited, who were reputed to have the best reproduction quality in the world. Alas, they refused to trust the colours of transparencies sent to them, resulting in postcards and calendars with garish shamrock greens for a number of years.

Heyday of the Lithographed Postcard

By the 1960’s Banff thronged with tourists packed in tightly on Banff Avenue. With the completion of TheTrans Canada Highway and The Icefield Parkway, (which connected Banff with Jasper), bumper to bumper tourist cars and trailer caravans snaked through the mountains all summer long. Everyone bought souvenir postcards.

Don’s photograph of Moraine Lake was on the back of the Canadian $20 bill for many years. He sold his photographs to companies such as Canadian Freightways for their annual large format calendar.

Don Takes to the Air Once More

In the 1970’s Don’s love of flying drew him to aerial photography. He flew with renowned helicopter pilot, Jim Davies, who pioneered mountain rescue procedures using helicopters within the Canadian National Parks. Regulations were not as strict then; Don was able to hire Jim privately to photograph specific locations like Abbott Pass, Lake Louise, Mount Forbes, and the Freshfields from the air.

Don Harmon and Columbia Icefield

My father admired his father’s Columbia Icefield Expedition photographs and believed that the public should be shown the vastness, beauty and importance of this remote landscape and ecology. In 1974, he began photographing Columbia Icefield from the air, including all the glaciers sourced by this giant repository of ice.

Jim would remove the helicopter door and Don, strapped in only by his seat belt, handheld his 4 x 5 camera, or medium format Rollei, as Jim tilted the chopper this way and that to give Don his desired view, sometimes pointing his camera straight down.

On the Glacier, Wearing Crampons

I sometimes accompanied Dad onto the glaciers themselves. We wore crampons over our boots. He was particularly fascinated with the structure and poetry of ice: beautiful ice caves, crevasses, seracs and mill holes.

He hired outfitters and duplicated parts of Byron’s historic expedition. I was fortunate to be part of his pack-train trip to Castleguard Meadows, in 1975, with guide Bert Mickle and Bart Robinson, a friend who was also helping Dad with his project.

He packed up Athabasca River to the base of Mt. Columbia with his sister, Aileen.

Altitude Publishing Ltd.

My first husband, Stephen Hutchings, and I took over Byron Harmon Photos in 1980, changing the business name from Byron Harmon Photos to Altitude Publishing Limited. I wished to change the image of the company from a tourist souvenir business to a publishing company.

Columbia Icefield, A Solitude of Ice

Altitude’s first major project was to publish, in 1981, a hardcover book with my father’s photographs, Columbia Icefield, A Solitude of Ice. It was co-published in the US by The Mountaineers. Bart Robinson, who had accompanied Don on some of his photographic adventures, (once they were struck unconscious when lightening hit nearby on Athabasca Glacier), wrote the text. I was the photo editor and researched quotes about glaciers which were used as section headings. The book included sections on understanding glaciers, a tour of the Icefield itself, and a human history of the area. It is still occasionally available through used booksellers.

I now believe my father would have preferred a tourist scale book of photographs, which would have educated millions of tourists to the beauty and importance of Columbia Icefield.

Bio

Don Harmon lived in Banff his entire life, except for the war years. He was active in Banff Rotary, the Banff Advisory Board to Parks Canada, and was on the committee to promote Banff’s two unsuccessful attempts to bring the Olympics to Banff and Lake Louise. His proposal, to combine out-of-Park facilities for most events, using only the spectacular ski hills of Lake Louise, within Banff Park, for downhill events, was defeated by international environmental lobbies.

Don Harmon died in Banff in 1997.

He was not a religious man, saying the war had cured him of any wish for organized religion. When asked, he said, the mountains are my church.

Only a few months ago came a letter from Fred [Stephens] saying: I know of some valleys hidden away, where the beavers still build their lodges, and where there are fish in the streams, and wild raspberries, and cariboo. Say, friend, come! and let the whole dam world race for dollars.

J.N Collie, 1923
from, Columbia Icefield, A Solitude of Ice: Beyond the Mountain Wall

Carole Harmon
2025