Before the Hindenburg disaster (1937), airships were seen as the future of long-distance travel by both the military and civilian governments. In 1926, Canada agreed to construct an airship base in Quebec to support transatlantic flights from Europe.

In the summer of 1930, to demonstrate the viability of transatlantic commercial airship service, the British R-100 left Britain on a three-day journey across the Atlantic, arriving in Sait-Hubert, Q.B., to great fanfare. After minor repairs, it embarked on a two-day publicity tour over southern Ontario and the Niagara Peninsula, where the photographer captured this image.