Dozens of World War I photographs, including some from Australia's Gallipoli campaign, have been saved by a quick-thinking removalist in Canada.

Max Madden, an Australian who operates a removalist business in Vancouver, was helping relocate Canadian man Trevor Pilley to a retirement home when he came across the historic black and white photos.

They were contained inside an album marked, "Dardanelles - Landing of Australians and New Zealanders at Anzac", which was in a pile of belongings to be sent to a consignment store for auction.

"I said, 'Look, these are pretty important, you probably shouldn't send them off to a consignment store and auction because your father may want to keep them," Mr Madden said.

"'And if not, as Australians, it's pretty important to us.'"

The photos were taken by Trevor Pilley's father, Charles, who was a machine gunner in a biplane during World War 1.

"Trevor's father had travelled quite extensively during the war, through from the Gallipoli campaign right through into the Middle East from Palestine, Gaza and then across and over into India," Mr Madden said.

"There's a number of photos of Turkish prisoners of war, a couple of very early World War I tanks, very early military motorbikes with sidecars from like 1916.

"It's a pictorial history of that time that encapsulates the military side as well as things of quite a personal nature."

Mr Madden put a collection of the photos on display for the recent Anzac Day ceremony in Vancouver.

He plans to send copies of the rediscovered images to the Australian War Memorial, as well as its Canadian counterpart.

He said the fortuitous find is a reminder of how important it is to ensure historic images are properly archived.

"It's important for everybody to take a step back and look at things, especially in the digitised age ... [because] those photos can't be replaced."