The British Library’s Colonial Copyright Collection is a remarkable archive of more than 4,000 images depicting the period 1895 through 1924. Digitized over the past several years, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the country’s homesteading, bear-wrestling, train-crashing past — with a few hockey asides. Phil Hatfield, the Library’s Canadian curator, has a good overview of the project here. Above, photographer William Elisha Maw’s 1904 winter idyll, “Benched,” from his “Canadian Hockey Girl” series.

[Photo: Canadian Copyright Collection, British Library, number 15498]