Standing, Briefly, Atop the World:
Beverly B. Dobbs and the Wonders of Alaska

Beverly B. Dobbs was born in Marshall, Missouri, in 1868, but spent much of his childhood in Lincoln, Nebraska, where the family moved when he was eight.^[1] It was there, at age 14, that he took an interest in photography, something that eventually became his profession. When Dobbs was 20, in 1888, he left the Midwest and settled near Bellingham, in what was then known as Sehome. There he and a partner started Dobbs & Fleming, one of the area’s first picture studios, specializing in portrait photography.

But, after a decade in business, Beverly Dobbs became interested in a slightly different pursuit. At the studio he had photographed prospectors who were either going to or returning from the Klondike gold fields and was taken with their stories of Alaska. In the summer of 1900 Dobbs finally went there himself, traveling up to Nome on the S.S. Garone. He didn’t go seeking his fortune; Dobbs just wanted the experience, and knew he could support himself by running a seasonal portrait studio.^[2]

It was the beginning of a new business direction – Dobbs would spend summers working in Nome and winters in Sehome, a cycle that had him returning to Alaska year after year. He was captivated with the beauty of the Seward Peninsula, and developed a strong affection for the native Inuit people – feelings driven, in part, by the fact that their longstanding traditions were dying out with the introduction of white (or “civilizing”) influences. As a photographer, Dobbs wanted to capture these people and their vanishing way of life, as he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1904.

          “More than any other do the people of this race show their life story in their faces. Each individual is like the pages of a book. Here [indicating one of his recent photographs] one can read of some great trouble. There one sees nothing but calm acceptance of what fate has or will decry…
          “I find my best subjects are the result of chance encounters with the natives, catching them on the instant of some impulse, and making the negative before they lose the charm which is inevitable as the result of naturalness.”^[3]

There was no shortage of people to shoot. “‘As a rule I have no trouble whatever in getting them to act as subjects,’” Dobbs claimed. “‘Many of them who have lived for some time near the settled parts of the country have learned that they possess a commercial value to the photographer, and demand pay for the services as a model. Their charges are not exorbitant, however, and they are always willing.’”^[4] In Dobbs’ surviving photographs there are numerous examples of subjects who came into his Nome studio to pose, but countless others who are captured out in the open, either in intimate moments or while engaging with the larger environment.

As with Northwest photographer Edward Curtis, Dobbs’ ethnographic camera work won him accolades. An exhibition of his Eskimo photographs was awarded a gold medal at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, for example, and he followed that up with a similar display created for the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland. Such showcases quickly established him as one of the county’s most important photographers of the Eskimo people.

At some point during these annual treks Beverly Dobbs began dabbling in motion pictures, something that may have occurred as early as 1902 or 1903.^[5] Initially this work wasn’t shown publicly, but after several years Dobbs began thinking about putting his accumulated footage into a form that could be shown to movie audiences. By 1910 Dobbs claimed to have shot more than 20,000 feet of film, and began pulling it together as a documentary subject.^[6] He tested some of this material at a few trial screenings in Nome, and had a good feeling about the public’s interest in Alaska. “‘If I can please those who are familiar with the scenes in my pictures,’” he later Seattle newsmen, “‘I feel sure I have hit it right for others.’”^[7]

Dobbs’ Alaskan pictures were first screened in the Northwest for the Seattle Press Club on November 25, 1910. “‘The moving picture business…affords an excellent opening for art of the highest type,” the filmmaker told the gathering. “‘Heretofore it has been made up principally of fake cowboy stunts, exchange of letters which were thrown repeatedly at you on the screen, and cheap melodrama. The public has grown tired of this, and now it has reached the point where only the true will endure.’”^[8] At this screening, Dobbs’ first outside Alaska, he stood next to the screen and narrated the scenes as they unfurled. These included footage of a 200-mile dog sled race between Nome and Candle, portions of which were filmed from one of the sleds, as well as a massive herd of reindeer at Golovin Bay, mining operations along the Solomon River and views of Alaska’s famed midnight sun. Perhaps the most spectacular footage was of a walrus hunt, showing native hunters descending on a herd of 100,000 or more, then claiming and cleaning their catch on the ice.

Serving as narrator allowed Dobbs to thrill the crowd not only with pictures, but with words. One of his stories included the very trip he took out of Nome to showcase his films: Dobbs hitched a ride on the schooner Bender Brothers, but the ship was caught in a fierce storm near Dutch Harbor that blew it across the Bering Sea, to within reach of Siberia. The storm was so strong, in fact, that locals assumed the Bender Brothers was lost – they were legitimately shocked when it limped back into port. But the ordeal was no picnic, and everyone aboard was forced to subsist on a strict diet of reindeer meat, for which Dobbs no longer had an appetite. “‘Before the boat could right itself the water and provisions had run low,’” he remarked, “‘…I fancied I could hear the jingle of Santa Claus’ sleigh bells and the prancing of hoofs of his reindeer steeds in the night, and awoke from my dreams with starts of horror.’”^[9]

Travel exploits aside, the moving pictures screened for the Seattle Press Club made a strong impression. “It was Alaska night at the Press Club,” said the Post-Intelligencer, “and Mr. Dobbs gave two or more of the most interesting hours the Press Club and its friends have ever been privileged to enjoy.” They were also in full agreement that Dobbs was providing a type of screen entertainment that wasn’t typically found in Seattle’s nickelodeon theatres. “To witness these pictures,” they remarked, “…far removed from the stereotyped ‘made to order’ motion films…thrilled those who never have seen the sights depicted.”^[10] The writer from the Daily Times was no less enthusiastic. “In one picture,” he observed, “which depicts countless billions of tons of ice churning and jamming its way through the Bering Straits into the Bering Sea from the Arctic Ocean, one almost could hear the crashing, grinding noise as the millions and millions of these big bergs and floes were smashed about by the current.”^[11] The films weren’t the only thing that impressed. The Press Club’s meeting room was decorated with examples of Dobbs’ still photography, adding to the collective impression.

Beverly Dobbs got his first public screening of this work a short time later, when the films were booked into the Grand Opera House for two nights beginning December 5^th. The Press Club screening garnered favorable comment, so the filmmaker rented the Grand for two nights ($500 for the space plus another $250 for advertising) looking for additional press that could be used to land a distributor.^[12] Fortunately, this wasn’t a hard show to sell in Seattle. There was growing public interest in Alaska for its natural beauty and untapped commercial potential, and it was widely seen as America’s last great frontier – wild, untamed and largely unexplored.

The Grand was near capacity for the opening presentation, but what really impressed Daily Times reviewer Edgar H. Thomas was the fact that the pictures showed Alaska as it really was. He contrasted what Dobbs was doing with how commercial filmmakers often portrayed Alaskan subjects, which lacked authenticity. “Every film shown won a hand from the spectators,” Thomas reported, “for the pictures merited it.”^[13] The two-day engagement was a critical and financial success; all told, the film brought in more than $1,600 over two nights, more than repaying the $750 outlay. Beverly Dobbs was right – he was onto something.

But despite this initial success, the Grand screenings were the last time the film was seen in the Northwest for several months. The glowing press notices got Dobbs a meeting with a distributor in Chicago, but nothing came of it; meanwhile, he prepared two short tours that would further showcase his Alaskan pictures. The first was down the coast to Portland, San Francisco and Sacramento, among other places, followed by an East Coast swing that saw him giving shows in places like Atlantic City and Philadelphia. The eastern dates even included a private screening in Washington, D.C., where the pictures were shown to select members of Congress, who were said to be “amazed” by his footage.

Beverly Dobbs was back in the Northwest by the spring of 1911. It was then that the Seattle Press Club got a second performance, on May 18^th, when they brought back his Alaskan films by popular demand. The group apparently had little choice. The members had been so enthusiastic about the first screening that, according to the Daily Times, “their wives became interested and – well, everybody knows what happens when a bunch of women want something…”^[14] But this wasn’t a repeat of what Beverly Dobbs showed them back in November. In angling for a distribution deal his pictures had evolved, though it’s unknown to what extent. And, for the first time, the show had a formal name, with Dobbs presenting his films under the collective title The Land Up There. (Some materials gave this title as Life in the Land Up There.)

This second Press Club screening, held in the Eilers Music Building at Third and University, was as warmly received as the first. But it was apparent that Dobbs was developing his presentation style. He still lectured through The Land Up There, but at this show he was assisted by Kenneth C. Kerr, a publicity agent for the Alaska Exploitation Syndicate, a company set up to assist Dobbs with his film tours. Captain John Backlund was also along for the ride, sharing his own experiences of trading with the Alaskan natives, though his talk may have an altogether separate feature. On top of this Dobbs engaged five musicians for the event, along with vocalist Henrietta Austen.^[15] It’s not clear if music had become a regular part of the show or whether Dobbs simply hired these folks for the evening; considering his aggressive push for a distributor, he may have begun incorporating musical elements into the touring version. Either way, this was a much more elaborate presentation than he gave six months earlier, an effort to create a more refined evening of entertainment in which his feature film served as anchor.

Beverly Dobbs also gave a public performance of The Land Up There during this visit, a single screening held at the Grand Opera House on the evening of May 20, 1911. Ticket prices started at 25 cents, going all the way up to $1.00 per seat, and advance publicity drew on Dobbs’ success in the East.^[16] “For two hours Mr. Dobbs leads his audience over snow and ice, sometimes by sea, sometimes by land, portraying in a most intimate manner all of the strange nooks and crannies in the ‘land up there,’” went an advance notice in the Daily Times. “One moment the spectator is enjoying the more or less sedate business of watching a gold clean-up; the next he is leaning forward as a little schooner crashes her way through the polar ice in the wake of a huge bear; later he is traveling over the 500-mile mail route behind Johnson’s famous mail team, or watching the finish of the All-Alaska sweepstakes dog race.”^[17]

This one-off screening at the Grand was well attended, and the Daily Times found much to praise about Dobbs’ film, where the realism of his footage (particularly scenes of a polar bear hunt) was both educational and thrilling. “[The Land Up There] was more intensely interesting than many well-acted dramas,” they gushed.^[18] Two days later, on May 22, 1911, Beverly Dobbs had yet another opportunity to showcase his motion picture work. This was at a public meeting held in the Arcade Building, part of a publicity campaign aimed at pushing the U.S. government to support Alaskan coal mining operations. The timing was perfect; not only was Dobbs in Seattle when this meeting was held but, apparently, he had recently taken footage of a protest in Cordova where miners dumped a barge of foreign coal into the bay. These Cordova scenes may not have been part of The Land Up There (Cordova was not specifically mentioned in press accounts), but Dobbs nonetheless used the opportunity show his mining footage as well as scenes of other commercial activities in the area.^[19]

The fact that the Cordova mining scenes were taken fairly recently highlights the fact that the picture Dobbs was showing in May 1911 wasn’t same one he showed six months earlier. Not only was Dobbs enhancing his showmanship, but he was also tinkering with the footage – something that occurred so often over the years that it’s difficult to know how his Alaskan film evolved over time. Shortly after these Northwest engagements, in fact, he went up to Alaska again for the summer, this time to shoot wildlife scenes. He returned briefly in September, then went back up to take additional footage, including some on Bogoslof Island, a marine volcano in the Aleutian chain. Much of that September trip, however, was given over to filming various commercial activities in Alaska, a new focus to Dobbs’ picture work.^[20] With both these trips, the filmmaker was shooting footage that was sometimes added to The Land Up There, replacing older or less engaging sequences, a mix-and-match process that created an unknown number of variations over time.

Beverly Dobbs was back in Seattle with his film in December 1911, helping the Seattle Transportation Club open their new meeting space at First and Yesler.^[21] Certain members were among the local companies who financed Dobbs’ September trip to Alaska, and they liked what they saw, inking a deal to sponsor a spring tour along the West Coast. “The transportation companies are financing the show, believing that it will draw hundreds of thousands of tourists North, thereby benefitting Seattle and the Northwest generally,” the Post-Intelligencer reported. “The companies behind the plan include the Pacific Coast and Alaska Steamship companies, the White Pass & Yukon railway, the Northern Commercial Company of Alaska, the Great Northern, the Milwaukee, the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk [railways]. Mr. Dobbs will take his show over the [John] Cort circuit [of theatres] down to California, and thence to the East.”^[22]

The kick-off engagement for this tour came in February 1912, when Beverly Dobbs gave two days of performances at the Moore Theatre, on February 5^th and 6^th. This particular version of Dobbs’ film included roughly 6,000 feet of new footage, including scenes highlighting the Alaskan operations for several of the companies financing the tour. Most of the picture, however, had a familiar ring – dog sled races, the walrus hunt (always an audience favorite) and scenes taken near Siberia. The show also had a new name. The Beverly Dobbs “tourographolog,” as it was now deemed, was being shown under the title Alaska, the Great Wonderland.

Although the picture still leaned heavily into nature footage, the new scenes in Alaska, the Great Wonderland were centered around different types of commercial activity. This included new mining footage but also scenes promoting Alaska as an agricultural gem, with under-appreciated farming and livestock opportunities. Some of Dobbs’ new footage even included transportation scenes. The picture now opened with shots of passengers in Seattle and Victoria boarding the northbound steamer, followed by scenes along the route from Victoria up to Skagway, along the British Columbia coastline. Pictures of Circle, on the Yukon River, were included along with film of the Copper River, in addition to glimpses of both Dawson and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. Wildlife and Eskimo footage were plentiful; here Dobbs seems to have been mixing his older footage taken in and around Nome with newer scenes showing kayak races, sled dog teams, polar bears, walrus, caribou herds and the like.

On the eve of this extended tour, the Moore engagement offered Beverly Dobbs an opportunity to reflect on what had become, to that point, a 10-year project. “‘I can truthfully say that the time I have spent taking pictures in the North has been the most interesting period of my life,’” he told the Daily Times. “‘The field [of documenting Alaska] was new, and I found a charm in every feature of it.’”^[23] That came through onscreen; Times reviewer J. Willis Sayre called the film “wonderful” and claimed that no one at the Moore “failed to realize at what vast expense, hard work and attention to detail these pictures were taken.” Dobbs’ film was two hours of escapism, starting at the Seattle waterfront and going all the way to Siberia, with “the audience…constantly on the go.” Sayre was convinced that the film would capture the public’s attention; his only advice for Dobbs was to dumb down his lecture for the tour. “The people of the East, as a whole, know absolutely nothing about Alaska.”^[24]

For reasons unknown J. Willis Sayre didn’t elaborate on the newest feature of the Dobbs’ presentation. This was the incorporation of sound effects, used in many of the scenes thrown onscreen, which seems to have resonated with audiences at the Moore. “Mr. Dobbs has a clever barking arrangement in all dog scenes, which adds much to the realism,” remarked the Post-Intelligencer, “and in every picture where there is a characteristic sound it is cleverly [re]produced. This is particularly effective in the picture of the 500-mile mail trip taken in the dead of winter, and in the views showing the natives driving the reindeer.”^[25] Unfortunately, the paper didn’t elaborate on how or who was making these sounds – it wasn’t Dobbs, since he was lecturing for the audience. But in preparing a larger tour, he appears to have hired others to provide a series of sound effects for Alaska, the Great Wonderland; the Moore engagement seems to have been a test run for this feature.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

[1] E.S. Harrison, “Beverly Dobbs” from Nome and Seward Peninsula: History, Description, Biographies and Stories (Seattle, WA: E.S. Harrison ― 1905), Page 360; and clippings from the Photographer Reference File (Dobbs, B.B./Dobbs & Fleming), University of Washington Special Collections Division. See also “Sourdoughs Who Have Made Good,” undated clipping from the late 1920s/early 1930s, W.C. Forbes Scrapbook #2, University of Washington Special Collections Division, inside back cover. Interestingly, there’s at least one period article that claimed Dobbs was not born in Missouri but was instead hailed from New England. (See “A Cinematograph Pioneer,” Moving Picture World, 14 December 1912, Page 1071.)
[2] W.C. Forbes Scrapbook #2, University of Washington. According to a 1904 article in the Post-Intelligencer, Dobbs had just spent his fifth season in Alaska, though some later articles indicate he may have visited even earlier. (See “The Dobbs Eskimo Prize Winners,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 13 November 1904, Section II, Page 12; and “Moving Pictures Depict Alaska,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 26 November 1910, Section II, Page 1.) Dobbs didn’t always work solo at his spartan photography studio in the Nome, eventually partnering with A.B. Kinne between 1903-1905, as well as F.H. Nowell. (See David Mattison, “Beverly Bennett Dobbs (1868-1937),” The British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Photographic Directory, 1858-1950 (http://cameraworkers.davidmattison.com/getperson.php?personID=I521&tree=cw18581950), accessed 23 June 2018.) In 1911, when Dobbs sold his Nome photography studio to tour with Atop of the World in Motion, Nowell was the buyer, picking up many of Dobbs’ original photographs as part of the deal.
[3] “The Dobbs Eskimo Prize Winners,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 13 November 1904, Section II, Page 12.
[4] Ibid.
[5] See W.C. Forbes Scrapbook #2, University of Washington.
[6] “Pictures of Life in Arctic Will Go Over World,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 25 November 1910, Page 4.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid. Dobbs claimed that all but one sequence in his picture was unscripted. The lone exception was a seal dance that took place in Nome when he wasn’t there to film. In that case he arranged to have the dancers perform it again a few days later for the motion picture camera.
[9] “Pictures of Life in Arctic Will Go Over World,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 25 November 1910, Page 4.
[10] “Moving Pictures Depict Alaska,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 26 November 1910, Section II, Page 1.
[11] “Dobbs Presents True Pictures of Far North,” Seattle Daily Times, 26 November 1910, Page 7.
[12] The fact that Beverly Dobbs rented out the Grand Opera House himself wasn’t mentioned at the time; Frank Teck, writing in 1920, specifically mentioned that Dobbs bankrolled the engagement. See Frank C. Teck, “Seattle Scenes in Silver Horde,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 April 1920, Drama, Music and Motion Picture Section, Page 3.
[13] Edgar H. Thomas, “Dobbs’ Pictures Interesting,” Seattle Daily Times, 6 December 1910, Page 9; see also “Arctic Pictures at the Grand,” Seattle Daily Times, 5 December 1910, Page 14.
[14] “Press Club to See Pictures of North, Seattle Daily Times, 12 May 1911, Page 11.
[15] “Press Club Takes Trip to Far North,” Seattle Daily Times, 19 May 1911, Page 18.
[16] See “Dobbs’ Alaska Pictures Tonight,” Seattle Daily Times, 20 May 1911, Page 3.
[17] “Alaska Pictures at the Grand,” Seattle Daily Times, 19 May 1911, Page 11.
[18] “Large House Enjoys Pictures of Alaska,” Seattle Daily Times, 22 May 1911, Page 4.
[19] See “Alaskans Will Gather Tonight in Mass Meeting,” Seattle Daily Times, 22 May 1911, Pages 1 and 2.
[20] “In the Lobbies of Hotel and Club,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 23 September 1911, Page 6.
[21] “Hotel and Club,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9 December 1911, Page 6; “Club Moves Into its New Home,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 December 1911, Page 9; and “Hotel and Club,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 17 December 1911, Page 6.
[22] “Dobbs to Show Views of Arctic,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 January 1912, Page 8.
[23] Beverly Dobbs, quoted in “Dobbs’ Alaskan Views,” Seattle Daily Times, 1 February 1912, Page 8; see also “Alaskan Pictures at the Moore,” Seattle Daily Times, 26 January 1912, Page 8; and “Dobbs’ Alaska Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 31 January 1912, Page 8.
[24] J. Willis Sayre, “Scenes of Alaska Draw Great Throng,” Seattle Daily Times, 6 February 1912, Page 8.
[25] “Pictures Depict Life in Alaska,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 February 1912, Page 7.

The Moore engagement kicked-off for a mini tour of the Pacific Northwest, where Beverly Dobbs would hone the show before eventually taking it to Chicago. After leaving Seattle, Dobbs took Alaska, the Great Wonderland to the Grand Theatre in Aberdeen, playing the 18^th and 19^th of February. Then he came back to the Puget Sound region, playing three days at the Tacoma Theatre before heading into eastern Washington, including a two-night engagement in Ellensburg in mid-March. April and May were given over to playing towns in Oregon, with one-, two- and three-day engagements in cities like Portland, Pendleton, Salem, Astoria, Medford and Grants Pass. For dates in Ashland and Klamath Falls, Dobbs gave several shows outside the theatre setting as a special added attraction for a touring Chautauqua that was passing through the area.^[1]

During this Oregon swing the Evening Herald in Klamath Falls ran an advertisement that listed, in detail, the subjects that made up Alaska, the Great Wonderland. It’s one of the few times that Dobbs’ picture was described in full; while certain scenes were mentioned frequently in reviews, here each section was broken down individually. At this point, Dobbs’ film had 10 individual parts which, when factoring in reel changes, kept the running time of each show to about two hours.^[2]

RESULT OF TEN YEARS’ LIFE IN THE POLAR REGIONS
Endorsed by Scientists, Press and Public Everywhere Shown.
Most Marvelous Portrayal of Arctic Life Ever Seen.

1—Through the Heart of Alaska—Leaving Seattle docks. Up through the inside passage to Skagway. Out over the White Pass, Skagway Valley. The trail of ’98. The Summit where two trails meet. [This section appears to have been misnamed in the advertisement, as it’s also used below for a film that appears to better fit the title.]

2—Mining in Alaska—The miners at work in the northern gold fields. A fifty-thousand-dollar clean up. Mammoth gold dredges at work. The hydraulic elevator.

3—Ice Packs in the Arctic—Passing from Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Native seal hunters. The ice gorge around the cape at Wales. My dog team. The Polar bear. His fight for life. The fatal shot. The harpoon. The lookout from the crow’s nest.

4—Through the Heart of Alaska—Down the Summit to Lake Bennet Miles Canyon. Forty-Mile Caribou. Dawson. Circle City. The midnight sun. Tanana. Ruby City. St. Michel and Nome.

5—Living Pictures in the Arctic—Showing living pictures of the Eskimo at Cape Prince of Wales. Mothers, babies, children, old men, women making thread and clothing. The dance at night. The seal dance.

6—Annual All-Alaska Dog Team Race—Distance, 420 miles; time, 12 hours; purse, $12,000. Go as you please. Driver must return with the same dogs starting, dead or alive. Condition of men and dogs on trail. The finish.

7—Siberia—A cruise on the fur trading schooner Sea Wolf. The rugged coast of Siberia. Trading with natives by the light of the midnight sun. Music hath charms. Oomiaks, kiaks, villages, living pictures of the Siberian natives.

8—U.S. Mail Dog Team—Out along coast line of Bering Sea; the storm. Road houses for men and dogs. Snowshoeing ahead of the dogs over the pass. The government stakes amid the great white silence. The Eskimo boy and his reindeer. The missionary.

9—The Copper River Country—The coast line, Southwestern Alaska, Cordova. Along the line of the Copper River & Northwestern railway. Copper River Valley, its mountains and glaciers. Ascending in an aerial bucket line up forty-five hundred feet to the Bonanza mine, the richest copper mine in the world.

10—The Walrus Hunt—Eskimo discovers herd of walrus, notifies natives, who come out of their igloos for the chase. Hauling the great whaleboats over the ice to the open water. Launching, shooting and harpooning. Hauling out on the ice. Taking skin and ivory. The charge through a living sea of 100,000 barking and bellowing walrus. At 2 a.m. 200 miles inside the Arctic circle. The female and her babies. How she holds them.

The Washington and Oregon tour set the stage for shows Dobbs planned for later in the year – something that prevented the filmmaker from making his annual trek up to Alaska. He started in Chicago. There he arranged a special screening before that city’s press club, employing a tactic that had worked well in Seattle.^[3] It was a success, and led to what would become a five-month engagement at the Whitney Opera House, where Dobbs mastered his showmanship over a run of 330 performances. Like he did in Seattle, the show relied on Dobbs to lecture but also had musical elements to diversify things. And he continued to experiment with sound effects, using techniques that other travelogue filmmakers, such as Burton Holmes, were employing in their shows. For the Chicago engagement Sidney Davies was doing this work, tucked away behind the screen where he provided a variety of sounds to compliment the onscreen images. During the walrus footage, for example, Davies could be heard “bellowing” in the background. From descriptions, Davies’ work included not only animal sounds but other effects (mechanical or otherwise) that enhanced the viewer experience, including the sound of running water and the crash of ice floes. This work appears to have been a considerable advancement over the sound effects heard at the Moore Theatre earlier in the year. “Mr. Dobbs, indeed, deserves not only liberal support, but also warm praise for the entertainment, education and positive enjoyment afforded by these pictures…” went a comment near the end of his run.^[4]

The success of the film in Chicago, where it was now being marketed as Atop of the World in Motion, put Dobbs and his documentary feature in demand. Naturally, of course, he next took the picture to New York City, where his growing reputation landed him a write-up in Moving Picture World. This interview, running in November 1912, was excellent publicity for Atop of the World in Motion, which Dobbs planned to release on a wider basis at the conclusion of the New York run.

Interestingly, the film had changed again by this point. Back in Klamath Falls the show was advertised in 10 parts, which suggests that there were 10 individual reels. By the time Dobbs arrived in Chicago, however, he had the picture down to six reels, and it would eventually marketed at that length. This continued paring down might explain why later advertising claimed that the “[p]ictures have only been shown in New York and Chicago,” despite the fact that Northwest audiences had seen the work on several occasions. Regardless, Atop of the World in Motion, at six reels in length, incorporated only a fraction of what Dobbs claimed to have filmed during his many Alaska trips. By now he was only showing the best of the best.

As before, Beverly Dobbs got the publicity ball rolling in New York by hosting a press screening, this one at the American Museum of Natural History. “In many respects Mr. Dobbs’ series of motion views has never been equaled,” wrote Moving Picture World’s unnamed reviewer, who attended the screening. “[The c]learness of photography is the finest that has ever come from Alaska, and the subjects are enlivened by scenes of great interest throughout.”^[5] Interestingly, despite the extended run for Atop of the World in Motion in Chicago, Dobbs was coming to New York without firm play dates. The museum engagement and his profile in Moving Picture World appeared several weeks before audiences were able to see the show, so these initial efforts were designed to generate buzz amongst the city’s exhibitors. The filmmaker appears to have split time between securing a showcase venue and preparing the film for eventual distribution. To that end, Dobbs hired Joseph Conoly to coordinate efforts, the pair setting up a business office in the Fitzgerald Building at 42^nd and Broadway. Even if he couldn’t get an extended New York run, Dobbs was looking forward to the day Atop of the World in Motion would go into wider release.

Or, that was the plan. A byproduct of Beverly Dobbs’ growing success was that it infuriated a competitor, Captain Frank E. Kleinschmidt. Kleinschmidt was a German-born documentary filmmaker who had his greatest success in the early 1910s, including a pair of Arctic films that put him in the same sandbox as Dobbs. It’s a testament to the public’s interest in Alaska that 1912 saw at least three separate documentary features highlighting the state’s natural beauty and economic potential: William Harbeck’s Panoramic Views of Alaska in Animated Maps, Dobbs’ Atop of the World in Motion and Captain Kleinschmidt’s The Alaska-Siberian Expedition. But that interest spurred competition, and not the friendly kind. Harbeck died in April, so his picture wasn’t widely distributed. That left the other two filmmakers to duke it out, and the German wasn’t about to let Dobbs grab any part of the spotlight.

Captain Kleinschmidt, whose Alaska work was sponsored, in part, by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, sued Beverly Dobbs shortly before Atop of the World in Motion came to New York. Kleinschmidt’s film, The Alaskan-Siberian Expedition, was officially released in May 1912, so it was on the market before Dobbs began his engagement in Chicago. Dobbs was slapped with an injunction to halt further screenings of Atop of the World in Motion, though he appealed the matter and got a favorable court decision on November 14, 1912. Kleinschmidt argued that Atop of the World was an attempt to copy his own work, though Dobbs was able to demonstrate that he had been actively filming and exhibiting his picture well before Kleinschmidt even began his Alaska project. That KIeinschmidt was unhappy with the decision was an understatement; trade paper ads for The Alaskan-Siberian Expedition began running a new disclaimer airing his displeasure. “Beware of other lately advertised ALASKA-SIBERIA MOTION PICTURES under the assertion that they have been shown only in Chicago and New York. INVESTIGATE. They have been exhibited for the last TWO YEARS under the names of Tourographologs, Travelougs, Arctic pictures and other aliases in Hotels, in Y.M.C.A.s and lecture halls all through the West and the East. INVESTIGATE.”^[6]

The Kleinschmidt injunction ended up being a nuisance that delayed the New York opening for Atop of the World in Motion, which eventually took place on Sunday, December 1^st, at Weber’s Theatre. With Kleinschmidt slapped down, Beverly Dobbs was now on a roll and got profiled yet again in Moving Picture World shortly after the film opened. “‘It had never before been my good fortune to visit a country so teeming with novel sights and adventure,’” Dobbs said of his initial visit to Alaska, years earlier. “‘The deeper in it I got the bigger loomed the project…Many a trip was made at a great expense of time, energy and money, only to return with little or no results for my efforts, because of unfavorable climatic conditions and other obstacles which could not be overcome at the time. However, after a number of years of alternating failure and success, I finally accomplished in getting a collection of pictures of which I am proud, and I am highly gratified with the appreciation which the public has accorded my work.’”^[7]

At Weber’s the filmmaker continued lecturing audiences while Joseph Conoly worked the business end of the picture. They called themselves the Original Alaska-Siberia Motion Pictures Company, with Conoly advertising Atop of the World in Motion on a state rights basis. They started by offering investors a 60-day window in which the rights for certain territories could be obtained for free. But “free,” in this case, was a bit of a misnomer – it only meant that there was no up-front cost. Interested parties still had to purchase the film (prints were made through an agreement with the Gaumont Company) for 20 cents a foot, on top of paying Dobbs’ company a percentage of the box office. But they weren’t necessarily marketing Atop of the World in Motion as a single picture. Ideally the film would be shown in its entirely, but buyers had the ability to purchase reels individually, allowing them to pick and choose the Alaskan scenes they wanted to present. Included in any deal, as well, was access to promotional materials, which could be purchased at an additional cost. Dobbs’ photographic work played a large part; his still photography could be displayed inside or outside the theatre, along with colorful posters and lobby cards designed and printed by the Morgan Litho Co. of Cleveland. (“An Elaborate Line of Pictorial Printing not even surpassed by Barnum and Bailey.”) Dobbs even prepared a copy of his lecture notes, which could be purchased with some or all of the films, such that a state rights holder could hire their own man to accompany the show.^[8]

The engagement at Weber’s Theatre lasted only six weeks, much shorter than his time in Chicago, but Beverly Dobbs accomplished what he needed. The end of the film’s New York run coincided with the close of the rights window for Atop of the World in Motion, which expired on January 15, 1913.^[9] After that, the picture’s success was in the hands of state rights holders.

Despite finally crossing the distribution threshold, it didn’t stop Beverly Dobbs from giving a pair of special performances in New York – lectures on February 7^th and 8^th at Carnegie Hall. It also didn’t stop his publicity machine. Now Moving Picture News got into the act, penning their own profile of Dobbs in their February 22^nd edition, in an interview that came directly out of the Carnegie shows. Writer M.I. MacDonald was keen to highlight the dangers Dobbs faced while taking his Alaskan footage, working overtime to boost the fortunes of Atop of the World in Motion. This was abundantly clear in his dramatic (and overly long) opening sentence:

          Imagine being two hundred miles from land and as many more miles above the Arctic circle and compelled to jump from one floating cake of ice to another, a heavy, unwieldy motion picture camera hugged to you with one arm and hand, while you turned the handle of it with the other, all the time, surrounded by infuriated, barking, bellowing, fear-crazed walrus churning up the sea beneath you in their frantic effort to protect their young and themselves from the merciless onslaught of the Eskimo hunters.^[10]

MacDonald’s portrait made Beverly Dobbs into a prototype Indiana Jones – cool, confident and routinely in harm’s way. When he wasn’t leaping between ice floes, for example, Dobbs was journeying to Cape Prince of Wales, the westernmost point in North America, where he and his dog team were hit with blizzard conditions. They made it safely to their destination, but the return trip was treacherous for the opposite reason. Temperatures were now warming so rapidly that the sled trail was no longer passable, and Dobbs’ only option was to take the team directly onto the thawing sea ice. Which, in McDonald’s account, of course, started to crack and break away as he frantically raced towards Nome.

The Carnegie Hall engagements capped an eventful period for Beverly B. Dobbs. He began 12 months earlier at Seattle’s Moore Theatre, toured parts of Washington and Oregon, played extended engagements in both Chicago and New York, prepared Atop of the World for national distribution and had the trade press laud him on multiple occasions. It was all a whirlwind, and with his motion picture finally rolling out into theatres across North America, it was time for Dobbs to move on from the project that had engulfed almost half of his professional life. Now he had to consider what came next.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] See “Lectures Instructive,” Ashland Tidings, 30 May 1912, Page 1; and “The Chautauqua Now in Session,” The Evening Herald (Klamath Falls, OR), 3 June 1912, Page 1.
[2] See Dobbs advertisement, The Evening Herald (Klamath Falls, OR), 27 May 1912, Page 4.
[3] See “Last Friday night…,” Seattle Daily Times, 29 July 1912, Page 8.
[4] “Beverly Dobbs’ Arctic Pictures,” Moving Picture World, 12 October 1912, Page 128.
[5] “Dobbs’ Alaska Pictures,” Moving Picture World, 2 November 1912, Page 442.
[6] See “No Injunction Against Dobbs,” Moving Picture World,” 30 November 1912, Page 866; “Dobbs Wins from Kleinschmidt,” Seattle Daily Times, 2 December 1912, Page 9; and Carnegie Museum Expedition Alaska-Siberia Motion Pictures advertisement, Moving Picture World, 30 November 1912, Page 903. Interestingly, several months before Kleinschmidt’s picture was formally released, he brought it to Seattle, in January 1912, playing to capacity houses for two nights at the Alhambra Theatre, followed by an entire week at the Lyceum. By that point Beverly Dobbs had already shown his Alaska films several times in and around Seattle, and indeed, about three weeks after Kleinschmidt left town Dobbs was back on a local screen, lecturing at the Moore Theatre in early February. (See Louis L. Goldsmith, “Seattle, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 17 February 1912, Page 602.)
[7] Beverly Dobbs, quoted in “A Cinematograph Pioneer,” Moving Picture World, 14 December 1912, Page 1071.
[8] See Original Alaska-Siberia Motion Picture Company advertisements, Moving Picture World, 2 November 1912, Page 479; and Moving Picture World, 16 November 1912, Page 701.
[9] See “Dobbs’ Pictures Pulling at Weber’s,” Moving Picture World, 28 December 1912, Page 1302; and Atop of the World in Motion advertisement, Moving Picture World, 4 January 1913, Page 95.
[10] M.I. MacDonald, “Some Difficulties Encountered by Beverly Dobbs in Alaska,” Moving Picture News, 22 February 1913, Page 18.

Beverly Dobbs stayed busy with his commercial film work in the 1920s, but the decade was less notable for his professional life than his personal one. The house on 57^th Street S.W. was built in 1921, but a short time later his wife Dorothy passed away on June 15, 1922, at the age of 47. The pair were married on May 20, 1896, in Bellingham, and Dorothy had supported him during his annual Alaska trips and all through his showcasing of Atop of the World in Motion, though she doesn’t appear to have accompanied Dobbs on the road. The marriage had its share of setbacks – in 1903 Dorothy began divorce proceedings, claiming Dobbs refused to support her.^[1] The couple eventually resolved their differences. They never had children, but in 1916 adopted a baby boy, James, whom they called Jimmy.

Dobbs was a single father for two years before marrying a second time, on March 16, 1924.^[2] His bride was a Montana girl named May Kelly, 22 years his junior, who immediately began circulating in West Seattle social circles. Her name appeared frequently in local papers, attending this soirée or hosting that tea; Dobbs himself was rarely mentioned, though the couple hosted events in their home from time to time.

With his marriage to Kelly, Beverly B. Dobbs appeared to settle down into a new life of domestic bliss, what with his new family unit and the outward success of his film business. Unfortunately, whatever façade the Dobbs family was putting forth in public masked the fact that the marriage was a disaster from the start. In 1913 Beverly Dobbs was riding high, celebrating a new film release and lecturing at Carnegie Hall. By the fall of 1930, however, he was one-half of a widely-publicized divorce case in which both parties went scorched earth.

May filed the initial suit, charging that her husband was cruel, controlling and unduly influenced by “his belief in Hindu fakirs.” She sought a straight division of property, which she valued at $150,000, and claimed that Dobbs was earning about $1,000 a month creating motion picture trailers for local theatres. At the same time, she asked the court for a pair of restraining orders – one to prevent Dobbs from “interfering” with her, and another to deny him access to their safe deposit boxes. In response, Dobbs’ lawyer argued that there was no cruelty in their relationship, that their assets were a fraction of what May claimed them to be, and that she was an alcoholic and routinely unfaithful, often disappearing from the house for days at a time. On top of this, the filmmaker began taking out personal ads against his soon-to-be-ex. “WILL not be responsible for any debts contracted by May Dobbs,” went one that ran in the Daily Times just days after the separation was announced.^[3]

This wasn’t going to be settled amicably. Both May Kelly and Beverly Dobbs dug in for a nasty divorce trial that got underway in January 1931, much to the delight of local reporters who leapt on every juicy detail. May gave several examples of Dobbs’ behavior which, based on her account, bordered on abusive. Dobbs, meanwhile, shared stories of her frequent public intoxication, which included his discovery of almost 50 empty liquor bottles stashed away in their West Seattle home.^[4] The real bombshell, however, came from an incident that occurred in October 1930, after May had disappeared from the house yet again. Following a traffic incident along the Bothell (now Bothell/Everett) Highway, she was found intoxicated, partially dressed and in the company of another man.^[5]

The couple got so caught up in these charges and counter-charges that they apparently never considered what the attention was doing to Jimmy Dobbs, age 13 at the time. Jimmy, in fact, was called to the stand at one point and forced to recount the details of his home life; according to a sympathetic Post-Intelligencer, the boy struggled to answer questions truthfully without angering either side. He admitted, for example, that May secretly made beer at home, and often let him partake. (Although Jimmy made a point of adding that he probably would have stolen some if she hadn’t offered.) He also reported that Beverly Dobbs could, in fact, be volatile, including a fight that got so vicious Jimmy had to club his father with a hammer to stop him from attacking May. The boy’s testimony depicted a family that was dysfunctional on every level. It was unsurprising, then, that the divorce was granted in February 1931, with a financial settlement that went in Dobbs’ favor, most likely because he continued raising Jimmy.^[6]

Though Beverly Dobbs’ personal life was in tatters by the early 1930s, he continued his work behind the camera. But now, in his 60s, he was slowing down and his health was beginning to suffer. He continued creating movie trailers and shot the occasional commercial gig, but made most of his money doing lab work for other Northwest cameramen.^[7]

Still, Dobbs found ways to showcase his earlier work. In 1928 he struck a deal to show Atop of the World in Motion in grade schools throughout the East and Midwest, demonstrating for children the wonders of Alaska – despite the fact that his film, a quarter century old, depicted several wonders that no longer existed. The picture was also dusted off in August 1929 for the Sourdough Stampede, a celebration honoring the men who braved the harsh conditions of gold rush Alaska. Held in Seattle, the Dobbs film was shown on August 16^th as part of the event’s formal banquet, and brought back nostalgic memories for attendees. Dobbs showed the picture again in April 1935, when the Chamber of Commerce invited him to present it during a training conference for the Seattle Quartermasters.^[8]

The Quartermasters show may have been the last time Atop of the World in Motion was ever seen. Beverly Dobbs passed away at age 69, on December 30, 1937, following a stroke suffered in a downtown Seattle restaurant.^[9] He was laid to rest in Bellingham, close to where his photography business operated half a century earlier, next to his first wife Dorothy.

Unfortunately Beverly B. Dobbs, like so many other regional cameramen from the era, is a forgotten filmmaker. He made several pictures over his career, but the American Film Institute only credits him with two – Atop of the World in Motion and the 1919 gimmick film A Romance of Seattle, produced by the Hudris Film Company of New York. (He was merely the hired cameraman on that shoot.) Men like Beverly Dobbs, however, were fixtures of the early film industry, capturing people, places and events for local, if not national audiences. His style of documentary and educational filmmaking was less in favor after World War I, but could still be seen in weekly newsreels, which covered similar material in a slightly different format. Some of the dramatic narrative features that Dobbs began adding to some of his works in the teens presaged the approach used by Robert Flaherty in his outdoor films, such as Nanook of the North (1922). Unfortunately, we may never know how Dobbs’ work compares – no print of Atop of the World in Motion is known to exist. According to his obituary in the Seattle Times, Dobbs’ personal copy was “turned over…for showing in the schools of America,” while the Library of Congress considers it a lost film.^[10] There’s hope, of course, that some or all of the picture is hiding somewhere in a film vault, waiting to be identified and restored. It’s a slim hope, but a hope.

And if, by some miracle, Atop of the World in Motion is eventually found, then the wonders of old Alaska will become new again. If only Beverly Dobbs could be there to describe it for us.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] “Nome Woman Wants Divorce,” Seattle Daily Times, 5 November 1903, Page 4.
[2] See “Announcement has been made…,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 February 1924, Page 33; and “Dobbs a Benedict,” Moving Picture World, April 5, 1924, Page 466.
[3] See “Husband in Fakirs’ Grip, Wife Charges,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 29 November 1930, Page 13; “Belief in Hindu Fakirs Given as Cause for Divorce,” Seattle Daily Times, 29 November 1930, Page 13; and “WILL Not…,” Seattle Daily Times, 2 December 1930, Page 26.
[4] “‘Exercising’ Mrs. Dobbs Calls Stunt,” Seattle Daily Times, 27 January 1931, Page 7; see also “Family Shopping is Denied Her by Dobbs, Says Wife,” Seattle Daily Times, 23 January 1931, Page 3.
[5] Fred Hamilton, quoted in “Chauffeur Tells of Finding Suing Wife in Machine,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 January 1931, Page 14; see also “Wife Suing for Divorce Faces Counter Charge,” Seattle Daily Times, 22 January 1931, Page 3.
[6] See “Baby Center of Divorce Fight,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 23 January 1931, Page 16; and “Court Gives Divorce to Dobbs, Wife,” Seattle Daily Times, 1 March 1931, Page 15.
[7] See “Galen Biery Photograph Collection,” Whatcom Museum of History and Art (www.whatcommuseum.org/archives/biery.html), accessed 9 March 2004; and “Galen Biery Collection – Biographical Note,” Center for Pacific Northwest Studies (www.acadweb.www.edu/cpnws/biery/bierybio.htm), accessed 9 March 2004.
[8] See “Eastern Students See Movies of Alaska,” Seattle Daily Times, 18 March 1928, Page 5; “Stampede Will Reenact Scenes of Alaska Rush,” Seattle Daily Times, 11 August 1929, Page 9; “Alaska Pictures Will Be Shown,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 April 1935, Page 2; and “Army Reserves to Hold 2 Meetings,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 April 1935, Page 3.
[9] See “Rites Monday for B.B. Dobbs,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 2, 1938, Page 18; and “Dobbs Funeral Tomorrow Noon,” Seattle Times, January 2, 1938, Classified Section, Page 7.
[10] See “Dobbs Funeral Tomorrow Noon,” Seattle Times, January 2, 1938, Classified Section, Page 7; and “List of 7200 Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films 1912-29 (last updated 12/29/16),” Library of Congress website (https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/Lost%20silent.updated_122916.pdf), accessed 27 June 2021.