Per Edward Larss / P. E. Larson (1863 – 1941)
	
Edward Larss was born in Sweden, the second son of Lars Nilsson. Only the eldest could inherit the farm so Per Edward was apprenticed at the age of eleven to an itinerant photographer. When economic condition worsened in Sweden in the 1870s, Larss immigrated to America and registered in the Swedish tradition of taking his father’s first name as his last. He worked in Minneapolis as an assistant photographer to Charles O. Oswald and Emil C. Oswald for two years to 1887. Larss opened his own studio in 1887 and then moved to Cloquet, a small lumber town in northern Minnesota where he combined field photography and studio work. In 1889, he moved west, stopping to work in Duluth for nine months and then moving to Fairhaven on Bellingham Bay in Washington state. It was a lumbering community and Larss found part-time work in Eric Hegg’s photographic studio and supplemented his income by taking scenic shots and supplying negatives to Price and Webster in Seattle.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: xvii, 2-7, 12-13.))
	
In 1891, Larss moved to San Francisco and set up a studio with W.C. Pierce called the W.C. Pierce Company, Round the World Photographers. In 1892, the partners moved to Canada to set up the Elite Photo Studio in Nanaimo.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: 14-18.)) By 1896, the international economic depression was affecting Nanaimo and many of the coal mines had shut down.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: 29-31.)) In October 1897, the //SS Portland// arrived in Seattle with news of the Klondike strike.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: 34-36.))
	
In late December, Larss quit the Bellsmith Studio, borrowed fifty dollars and set out for the Klondike. He took the train to Seattle and stayed with his friend Pierce who had opened a studio with E.C. Adams. He was working on a plan to accompany Eric Hegg’s brother Charles and another Swede P. B. Anderson to the Klondike. Eric was already at Dyea with a party of Bellingham investors. When Charles Hegg and Anderson sailed north, Larss still did not have the money to buy a ticket. In March 1898, Larss left Seattle working as a deckhand on the //SS Utopia// as the rush north was so strong that even inexperienced men were hired.((Ronald T. Bailey, Frozen in Silver. Ohio University Press, 1998: 38-43.))
	
Eric Hegg had established a photo studio on Broadway in Skagway and Larss was hired as a photo assistant and to help P.B. Anderson [Peter Andersson] freight their photo supplies over the Chilkoot Pass. Larss was working for Hegg so all the portraits and stock views of the gold rush photographs bear Hegg’s name.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: 45-50.))
	
Larss worked as Hegg’s assistant in the tent studio at Bennett in May 1898. The ice broke up on the lake on 3 June 1898 and the photographers joined the flotilla to Dawson.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: 63, 66, 77, 79, 81.)) In July 1898, Larss made a deal with Hegg and entered the business and E.A. Hegg became Hegg & Co. The mainstay of the business was scenic stock views and commissions of businesses or mines by their owners or proprietors. Eric Hegg left the Yukon for Skagway in September 1898 and took a large collection of photographs to mount an exhibit in New York. On 14 October, a fire burned through buildings in downtown Dawson but Larss was able to get his equipment and most of the glass plate negatives out before his studio was burned. He rebuilt the studio and was back in business on 24 October. Hegg’s exhibit in New York closed within two weeks and he was back in Dawson in early June 1899. Prior to Hegg’s return Larss had changed the studio sign to Hegg and Larss. Hegg decided to join the rush to Nome while Larss remained in Dawson and their partnership dissolved. Larss formed a new partnership with Joseph E. N. Duclos on 1 April 1899 and Duclos expanded the business to include a portrait studio. The business prospered and Larss invested in mining properties.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: 86-89, 93-94, 99-100, 103.))
	
On 2 June 1900, Larss left Dawson for a quick trip outside to buy photographic supplies and visit friends. Back in Dawson he was busy looking after his mining concerns and photographing the changes in the community from boomtown to settlement.  In July 1903, Larss sold the studio to Duclos and dedicated himself to mining. He moved to a claim on Irish Gulch but changes in the mining regulations made it increasing difficult for small operators. Larss left Dawson City in March 1904.((Ronald T. Bailey, //Frozen in Silver.// Ohio University Press, 1998: 119, 123-126.))

The P.E. Larss Diaries, 1897-1903, are in the Manuscript Collection 30, Alaska State Library.  The Alaska Historical Library has some negatives.