This was taken in the USA around 1910. Hunting predators —in this case coyotes—with a pack of fast hounds was common practice at the turn of the last century. So was bringing a .22 rifle or a small-caliber handgun to finish the job if it was not all over when you caught up with the pack. However, a day’s bag of four critters was evidently remarkable enough for this very young hunter to bring everything to the photographer in town and have the event properly documented. Unfortunately, nobody thought of noting any details on the back of the photo, so the identity of this mean little coyote-killing machine and the exact date and place of the hunt remains unknown. This could easily be the grandfather or great-grandfather of some of our readers—how cool would that be? The contrast to the kids of our time is astonishing. No helmet, no kneepads or elbow protectors, and surely no constant adult supervision. I will even bet you that his mother did not drive him to the hunt…

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This was taken in Coastal Alaska around 1935. Just a few decades into the 20th century, hunting tourism had evolved into an industry catering to thousands of wealthy clients every year. The rapid development of basic infrastructure and highly sophisticated means of transportation, like cars and floatplanes, opened the last frontiers and gave wealthy hunters relatively easy access to very remote areas.

This Alaskan bush pilot is pictured in front of brown bear pelts killed by his clients in the mid 1930s. Surely, he would not want his picture to be taken with the bears bagged by his clients unless something was out of the ordinary. As I see it, there are two distinct possibilities: Either these hunters were shrewd enough to bring a midget dressed as a bush pilot to make their mediocre bear trophies seem colossal, or this is a very large bear! Unfortunately, there is no record of either the identity or the actual height of this bush pilot, but if he is six feet tall, then the bear on the left is close to an honest 10 feet
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This was taken in the USA in 1908. Having your picture taken was not an everyday occurrence a century ago. In fact, many people were only photographed once or twice during their entire lifetime. Therefore, preparing yourself was of paramount importance if you wanted it to stand out among the family heirlooms.

This guy does seem to have been well prepared for the photographer, showing off his harvest of coyote pelts, his horse, and his guns. The resulting picture was printed on photographic paper in the shape of a postcard—ready to spread the word of this particular hunter’s merits. It must have been a nice carte de visite to circulate among the local belles. How tough it would be to shoot a horseful of ’yotes with an open-sighted rifle—let alone stand atop the horse and frozen saddle for the duration of the photo’s exposure. Is it all right to envy a guy who’s probably been in the ground for six decades?
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