Canadian Heritage Photography Foundation ("CHPF") is a registered Canadian non-profit organization. The principal goal of the CHPF is to collect, preserve, digitize and make the archive available to students, researchers and the community. The archive connects people with Canadian history through the promotion and preservation of photography. The Foundation prioritizes digitization of archival holdings in order to make Canadian history available to all.
In 2001, Canadian photographer George Hunter founded CHPF with the vision to preserve the work of important Canadian photographs. After his death in 2013 Hunter bequeathed over 100,000+ prints, negatives, slides and ephemera to the Foundation establishing the largest collection of George Hunter's work in the world. The Hunter collection is an invaluable resource of rich Canadian historical photographs, including his ground breaking aerial photography from the 1950s, and his iconic images of Canadian industry, First Nations communities and Canadian life and times.
The Foundation's archive also houses a diverse selection of early twentieth century historical photographs as well as contemporary images. In an attempt to support and disseminate the work of today's Canadian photographers, the Foundation encourages donations of contemporary work so we may preserve these important images for the future.
The CHPF Photography Contest is both a fundraiser for the Foundation as well as an opportunity for contemporary photographers to be added to our collection.