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

9. For more details about Kwaragkwante, see Elizabeth Macpherson, The Sun Traveller:The Story of the Callihoos in Alberta (St. Albert, AB: Musée Héritage Museum, 1998),and Jan Grabowski and Nicole St-Onge, “Montreal Iroquois Engagés in the WesternFur Trade, 1800–1821,” in From Rupert’s Land to Canada: Essays in Honour of John E.Foster, ed. Theodore Binnema, Gerhard Ens, and R.C. Macleod (Edmonton: TheUniversity of Alberta Press, 2001), 45–46.10. Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J. 1801–1873, ed. Hiram MartinChittenden and Alfred Talbot Richardson, 4 vols. (New York: Francis P. Harper,1905), 2: 536–37. Because Pyramid Mountain can be seen from the site of JasperHouse II, as Warre’s sketch (Fig. 2.4) shows, it is interesting to speculate that it, andnot the nondescript one that goes by de Smet’s name in the valley today, was the onenamed for him by the local people upon his departure. Certainly, it is the most prominentlyshaped peak in the vicinity and accords with the description given by de Smet:“Each one discharged his musket in the direction of the highest mountain, a largerock jutting out in the form of a sugar loaf, and with three loud hurrahs gaveit my name” (2: 538).11. Lane had crossed the portage in May with Warre and Vavasour. Lovesick according toWarre, who was accompanied by him both to and from the Pacific Slope (“a moreuninteresting lovesick mortal I never met he had left some (Its to be hoped) fairYoung? (is 29 young?) Lady in Red River about whom he is always sighing” [LAC,Warre Papers, MS vol. 14, 67; typed transcription, vol. 33, 1031]), Lane was returningto Red River to marry Mary McDermott. The bride and groom were thus on theirhoneymoon when Kane travelled with them in the late summer, beginning at NorwayHouse on 14 August.12. This was his sketch of As-in-a-chu or Capôt Blanc, a Shuswap man. Kane first metCapôt Blanc at Jasper House on 5 November 1846, and across Athabasca Portage atBoat Encampment on the Columbia River eleven months later, on 10 October. Hisportrait of him was mistakenly identified as that of a Menominee woman, but RussellHarper made the correction based on the evidence of “No 20,” written in graphiteand in Kane’s hand in the upper left corner of the sketch. This number correspondsto the following entry in Kane’s portrait log: “20. As-in-a-chu. the white Cappa. orWaugh-be gin-u-sa-gi .the sock. a shew shoop cheefe- taken at Jaspers this is not hisproper country but haveing met withw a party of thostile Indanes farther to the northhe and his party. were invited to smoke the pipe of peace they laid down their armsand sat down when they were set upon and killed to the amount of 37 the remnent ofthem made their escape (11) to to jaspers” (Kane, Portrait and Landscape Log, StarkMuseum of Art, Orange, Texas, 11.85/4; transcr. I.S. MacLaren). (The sketch is heldby the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 41–72–392. For Harper, see Paul Kane’s Frontier. Including Wanderings of an Artist among theIndians of North America, ed., biog. intro., and catalogue raisonné J. Russell Harper,291 [IV-251] [Austin: University of Texas Press; Toronto: University of Toronto Press,for the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, and the National Gallery of Canada,Ottawa, 1971].) Harper also gives the setting of Jasper for Kane’s portrait of A-chis-alayor “The Call of the Wind” (291 [IV-252]) but only because it is the next entry in theportrait log, not because other evidence, including the text of the entry, links theI . S . M a c L a r e n 67