Background
Eric Hegg was born on September 17, 1867 in Bollnäs, Gavleborgs Lan, Sweden as the second eldest son to the crofter Jon Persson and his wife Brita Ersdotter in a family of eight (four sons and two daughters).
Eric Hegg was born on September 17, 1867 in Bollnäs, Gavleborgs Lan, Sweden as the second eldest son to the crofter Jon Persson and his wife Brita Ersdotter in a family of eight (four sons and two daughters).
Whole family left for United States in April 1881. At the arrival in New York City the family gave up their Swedish surnames and adopted the family name Hegg (derived from Heggesta, the name of their Swedish area of origin). The family settled in the Swedish settlements at the southern shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin and the fourteen-year-old Eric Hegg took up the profession as a photographer's disciple in Cloquet, Minnesota.
In 1888, Eric Hegg settled in the Swedish community outside Bellingham, Washington and together with his brother Peter he opened a new studio. After some years depicting foresters and farmers in the region the city got gold fever after another Swedish-American man returned rich from the Klondike Gold Rush. This sparked a wave of migration of young men to Alaska and Northwestern Canada. The Hegg brothers followed in their trail in order to open up new grounds for their photographic business.
In October 1897 Eric Hegg arrived in Skagway after a short stop in Dyea. He immediately opened a studio in the town. He was joined a year later by his brother and a friend of the two brothers, Peter Andersson. The following spring another Swedish-American photographer, Per Edvard Larss, came and joined the business.
The arrivals led to a series of expeditions along The Chilkoot Trail and further north and west to Dawson and Yukon via Bennett taking numerous pictures along the way. Eric Hegg built a darkroom on his boat he used when travelling along the river Klondike. The Hegg brothers together with their companions opened studios in Dawson and sold portraits to the frontier men and they also claimed land and participated in the mining.
In 1899, after a year in Yukon, Eric Hegg returned to Skagway leaving his studio in Dawson to his business companion Larss and another famous Klondike photographer, Joseph E.N. Duclos (Larss & Duclos). Eric Hegg travelled to New York the same year to show his pictures at a gallery, while his brother returned to Bellingham to manage their old studio. When returning to Alaska, Eric Hegg travelled to Nome visiting other Swedes working in the area and took pictures of the social life and the town. Among the customers were the "Three Lucky Swedes" who were first in Nome to become rich by mining. Their portraits were taken by Eric Hegg and he opened his largest studio so far.
His nomadic lifestyle bore its toll and his relation with his wife Ella became strained. In 1902 his marriage was finalized by a bitter divorce and the studio in Skagway went to his wife who sold it and along with all the negatives. Before leaving Alaska for a short time in Hawaii, Eric Hegg lived in Nome and then in Cordova, where he worked for Guggenheim's Copper River and Northwestern Railway until 1918.
Eric Hegg returned to Bellingham, Washington to move in with his son and once again he joined his brother to work in their old studio. But the partnership did not last for long. While his brother took up farming, Eric Hegg kept on the business until 1946. He died in Bellingham, Washington on December 13, 1947.
Chilkoot Trail
(Miners and prospectors at The Scales climbing the mountai...)
1989Tlingit and Aleut baskets and beadwork
1898Miner and his dogs
1900"Indian houses" in Cordova
Chilkoot Pass Tramway
Summit of Chilkoot Pass
Klondikers with dogsled and supplies
Railroad construction at Eyak Lake, Alaska
Haida village in Alaska
photography
Dawson City, Yukon
School children in Nome, Alaska
Pack train on the White Pass Trail between Log Cabin and Bennett Lake, British Columbia
1898Quotes from others about the person
Murray Morgan, One Man's Gold Rush: "The photographer's greatest interest lay in recording scenes that showed men in contest with nature."