Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America, from Canada to Vancouver's Island and Oregon, through the Hudson Bay Company's Territory, and Back Again (1859)

"A Spirit-stirring journal of adventures and strange perils." - The Canadian Journal, 1859 "A most graphic and entertaining account of the frightful country he succeeded in crossing. " -Edinburgh Review, 1859 "Varied and adventurous, Kane's journey is one of unceasing interest from its variety, its hardships, and its perils." -The Living Age, 1859 "A curious and valuable book, the patience and courage he showed raises our admiration." -The Economist 1859 It would be difficult to conceive of one better fitted to travel for us in a strange wild land, among the native people of its forests and prairie, than an artist, with sketch-book and notebook in one. An observant eye he must have, a keen appreciation of every striking minutiae of detail. Artist George Catlin having already chosen the Mississippi and Missouri valleys, Paul Kane resolved to keep more to the northward. The full narrative of his wanderings is set forth in his 1859 book "Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America," describing his 1845 tour from Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie and back, then from 1846-48 another much longer voyage from Toronto across the Rocky Mountains to Fort Vancouver and Fort Victoria. Mingling among the Indians as a great Medicine-man, respected or dreaded for his supernatural powers, Kane in the 1840s witnessed many singular rites and customs not often seen, and never before narrated by a traveller. His pictures of Chinooks, Blackfeet, Flathead, Iroquois, Sioux, Crees, Salteaux, Eskimo and other Indians of the Rocky Mountains, or west of them, is on the whole better than those of some travellers of the trapper or hunting genus. For four years he lived among the Indians of the north-west, during which he took every opportunity of observing the country and mingling, visiting their tents, listening to their tales, noting their peculiarities, joining in their hunts, and painting portraits of chiefs, warriors, and celebrated medicine men, as well as of Indian beauties; dances, hunts, and other characteristic scenes illustrative of Indian life, along with landscapes depicting the strange scenery of the unexplored West. Kane was apparently willing to risk his life for his art, as he demonstrated during a buffalo hunt with Salteaux Indians: "The buffalo stopped and faced me, pawing the earth, bellowing and glaring savagely at me. The position in which he stood was so fine that I could not resist the desire of making a sketch. I accordingly dismounted, and had just commenced, when he suddenly made a dash at me…." Repeatedly Kane was indebted for his safety to the superstitious fears which his paintings excited which were regarded as sources of influence for good or evil over the originals. In one case, when an Indian had pursued him for some days and occasioned him great annoyance, he effectually subdued him by the mere threat of taking his likeness. Another Indian would "attempt throw the portrait in the fire, when I seized him by the arm and snatched it from him. He glanced at me like a fiend, and appeared greatly enraged; before he had time to recover from his surprise, I left the lodge and mounted my horse, not without occasionally looking back to see if might not send an arrow …." Fleeing from another portrait gone wrong Kane "immediately procured a canoe, and started for Fort Vancouver, down the river, paddling all night, well knowing the danger that would result from my meeting with any of her relations.” Kane relates that "in one of my daily excursions, I was particularly struck by the ugliness of an Indian whom I met.