Between 1888 and 1958, several hundred government surveyors worked across the mountainous regions of what is now western Canada to create topographic maps. To do so, they used a made-in-Canada technique employing photography and a transit. Left in the wake of their map-making are more than 120,000 photographic negatives. Today these images are used to better understand changes in Canada’s mountain landscapes. Yet it must be remembered that – in mapping out a new nation – these photographs contributed to policies that discriminated against and excluded Indigenous peoples.