Henry James Warre's and Paul Kane's Sketches in the Athabasca ...

figure 2.8I.S. MacLaren. Solomon Creek,Brule Lake, Boule Range, andRoche Miette, May 1997.both banks of the river in the foreground and middle ground, withhelduse of it for the background, although vegetation—or else, shade—couldbe indicated in the darkening of the draw just to the right of centre inthe watercolour. (This draw has Errington Hill to the left, or south of it,and Brule Hill, to the right, or north of it. 19 ) As one would expect,Solomon Creek washes over the gravel bar at its mouth somewhat differentlyin the photograph than it does in Kane’s rendition. Otherdifferences can be accounted for, but it is also the case that Kane’sperspective foreshortens the distance in the landscape in a way differentfrom the photograph’s treatment: to the right of centre in the backgroundof the sketch, Roche Boule attains greater height as a result. Thisforeshortening is discernible also in Kane’s other treatments of scenesin the valley. This tendency results perhaps from the fact that Kane hadbeen sketching prairie and parkland landscapes ever since joining abuffalo hunt south of Fort Garry in June, five months before, and so theelevations encountered in the mountains struck his eye in exaggeratedfashion, but his varying representation of vegetation in the series ofsketches of the Athabasca valley does not indicate a similar pattern.Farther upriver, after a cold night that brought snow on 1 November,two men had to leave the brigade with the York boat and walk to JasperHouse for horses because, as Kane wrote in his field note for that day,they “could not row the boat[;] wind a perfect gale.” The order of hisI . S . M a c L a r e n 49