08/04/2026
📸 Faces from the Past: Never-Before-Seen Photos Return Home
The Naskapi Development Corporation is proud to share something truly special with our community.
In 1947, a young 21-year-old radio operator named Keith Willard Lank was stationed at Fort McKenzie in northern Quebec. He brought a camera with him and spent his time photographing the people he met and the daily life around him. What makes his collection especially remarkable is his focus on children. Where other photographers of the era tended to document adults, Keith got down to the kids' level, went sliding with them, and joined in their activities. Many of those children are still alive in our community today, now in their eighties.
Keith retired in Sherbrooke in 1983 and kept his photos, negatives, and his old camera his entire life, along with a pair of snowshoes and a drum he was given during his time in the north. He passed away in 2011.
After his passing, his daughter Cathie found the photographs and reached out to the Naskapi Development Corporation. She carefully wrapped the photos and sent them back to us, along with the snowshoes, the drum, and the original negatives.
Over the past month, our Communications Consultant Benjamin Joseph Jancewicz has been visiting elders across the community, sharing the images and recording their stories. The conversations have been deeply moving. Among the collection are six color photographs, the first color photos ever known to exist of our community.
We will be sharing the photos gradually on this page, roughly two at a time, as more people are identified. This project is deliberately AI-free. Our elders are doing that work instead.
Pictured: Thomas Sandy, photographed by Keith Willard Lank in 1947.
Read the full story and listen to the CBC Quebec AM radio broadcast on our website 👇
🔗 https://naskapi.com/kawawachikamachs-faces-from-the-past-never-before-seen-photos-return-home/
