Charles Townsend

Biography

Charles Townsend was an active member of the British Columbia Mountaineering Club for only a brief period. He arrived in Vancouver from England in the early 1920s and by the end of the decade had moved to California. However, in the few years he spent in British Columbia he climbed avidly. In 1923, together with Neal Carter, he undertook the first ascents of Wedge Mountain and Mt. James Turner.

Photographic Style

Townsend’s photographs are contained within a single, beautifully put together album. Striking images of climbs on the North Shore and Garibaldi region are decoratively captioned in calligraphy. These titles contain not only a record of the places visited and the peaks scaled, but something of the effort involved: “Nearly there”, “A breather”, “The top at last”, and finally “Homeward bound”.