Introduction
In a life that ranged from the placid English countryside to the halls of Cambridge University to the rugged world of the Texas Panhandle, Montgomery H. W. “Montie” Ritchie amassed a remarkable set of experiences. The grandson of Cornelia Adair, one of the co-founders of the Panhandle's JA Ranch, Ritchie was born in England in 1910. After his graduation from Cambridge, he left the life of an English gentleman and in 1935 assumed the management of the Texas property. While the JA Ranch was to be the focus of his activity for the rest of his life, he also pursued interests in mountaineering, skiing, and other outdoor activities, traveling the world in the process.
Associations from his days at Cambridge led to Ritchie’s participation in an expedition to Greenland and the Canadian arctic in 1934. Sixteen years later, Ritchie again responded to the lure of the north, joining a scientific expedition to the northeastern shore of Baffin Island, the largest island in Canada.
Acting as expedition photographer as well as a mountaineer, Montie Ritchie produced a rich visual document of this pioneering scientific effort. From spectacular landscapes to team members at work to the everyday events of camp life, Ritchie’s photographs captured scenes that had been known only to the island’s native residents. His Baffin Island photographs form part of the Ritchie papers, donated to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum by his daughter, Cornelia Ritchie, in 2019. A small selection of this unique work is reproduced here, providing a window into the many-faceted life of a man who experienced the world but called Texas his home.