Nils Olsson Reppen was born on a farm in the municipality of Sogndal, Norway in 1856 and emigrated to the United States in 1882. He started a career as a photographer in Minnesota, then returned to his home village and set up a business in the 1890s.

Rather than shoot simple portraits in a studio like a typical working photographer, he photographed his customers and countrymen outdoors amid the area’s dramatic mountains, fjords and glaciers, often using a large format stereoscopic view camera.

His compositions were unusual — he frequently posed his subjects far away from the camera, or packed them into the bottom of the frame, dwarfed by the towering landscape.

Though all but a few hundred of his photographs were destroyed in a fire, the surviving images brim with a unique blend of provincial pride and humility before an awe-inspiring environment.