Don Harmon was born on January 9, 1917, the youngest child of Byron and Maude Harmon, and grew up in Banff. Like most young men of his generation, higher education was forfeit to military service. Don served as a navigator in the 432 Leaside Squadron of the RCAF, flying bombing missions over Germany and France. His plane crashed at Reeth, Yorkshire, on his 3 operation after which he returned to the 432 Squadron with a new crew to complete 32 operations in total by October 7, 1944. On October 16 he married Norah McGill whom he had met while on leave in Edinburgh. Don returned to Canada with his bride and the couple settled briefly in Winnipeg as Don considered a career in the RCAF.

Don’s father passed away in 1942 while Don was in basic training. Don and Norah decided to return to Banff and take over the family business, Byron Harmon Photos. At first Don worked in the traditional black-and-white darkroom of his father, printing huge sheets of prints and postcards by hand. With no experience in business or photography, a young wife, and, by 1947, a daughter to support, there was much to learn. In the early 1950’s Don was experimenting with his father’s cameras, travelling by bus to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. In 1957 he embarked in earnest on a career as a landscape photographer by studying large format colour photography at The Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California.

Don introduced the first commercially printed colour photographs to Banff in the form of postcards, calendars and viewbooks. Over the next thirty years he expanded his collection of classic Canadian Rockies landscapes, mostly captured on 4”x5” transparency film. He searched throughout Canada, the US, and Britain for superior colour reproduction of his photographs and expanded the wholesale distribution of his products throughout the Rockies. The Byron Harmon Photos product line became the most innovative, in terms of design and production, in Canada.

Don’s years in the RCAF had a profound effect on him. He loved to fly! He had always admired his father’s wilderness photographs, in particular those from his 1924 photo expedition to the Columbia Icefield with pack train and movie and still cameras. Don felt that the vast Columbia Icefield was an unknown landscape, except for the north-eastern edge seen from the Icefield Parkway, and he hoped to introduce it to visitors to the area. It is the hydro-graphic apex of North America. Don set out to photograph it in it’s entirety, from the ground where feasible, and from the air for the remote south-western glaciers.

Don organized two pack trips with horses. The first, in 1973, followed the Athabasca River to Mt. Columbia. His sister, Aileen Harmon, was along on this trip and he was able to photograph Mt. Columbia itself with it’s magnificent glacier, The Twins, and other scenes along the north-western edge of the Icefield. In 1975 a second pack trip with Bert Mickle’s outfit from Bow Lake followed the Alexandra River from The Graveyard to Castleguard Meadows. Don’s daughter, Carole, was along on this trip. Although the weather was rainy for all but the first two days Don managed to photograph the now famous Castleguard Cave, first photographed by his father in 1924, as well as some moody views of the mountains around the Castleguard Meadows. (Aileen believes that in 1924 Byron discovered the Castleguard entrance to the vast limestone cave system which lies under the ice of the Columbia Icefield, estimated to be one of the largest in the world.)