Wanderings Of An Artist Among The Indians Of North America From Canada To Vancouver Island And Oregon Through The Hudson’s Bay Territory And Back Again

London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859. First Edition of this fascinating record of the western travels of one of the most famous nineteenth century Canadian painters. Inspired by George Catlin, whom he met during a visit to Europe, Kane determined to sketch and paint a series of pictures illustrative of North American Indians and scenery. He set out for the west in June of 1845, "with no companions but [his] portfolio and box of paints, [his] gun, and a stock of ammunition", spending the season in the Lake Huron and Lake Michigan region, chiefly among the Ojibway. For the next three years, he travelled further westward, mostly in company with Hudson’s Bay Company fur trade brigades, through the territories of the Red River settlements and the valley of the Saskatchewan, across the Rocky Mountains, down the Columbia to Puget Sound, and north to Vancouver Island. Kane brought back hundreds of detailed sketches: portraits of Indian chiefs, warriors, and medicine men, buffalo hunting and fishing scenes, portrayals of native dances and secret ceremonials, views of Hudson’s Bay Company posts. Of the paintings which he executed from his sketches, the most important was the series of one hundred canvases commissioned by prominent Canadian financier and politician, George William Allan of Toronto. Eight of these, which are now in the Royal Ontario Museum, are reproduced as coloured lithographs in this narrative. Cowan pp. 126-27. Field 811. Graff 2262. Howes K-7. Jones 1412. Lande 1258. Peel 212. Sabin 37007. Smith 5392. Strathern & Edwards 290 (7 plates). Streeter VI 3727. TPL 2911. Wagner-Camp 332:1. DCB X pp. 389-393. Story p. 398. 8vo. pp. xvii, [1], 455, [1]blank, [8]appendix. with half-title. folding coloured engraved map. 8 coloured lithographed plates with tissue guards. 13 wood-engraved text illus. original blind-stamped cloth (small stain on spine otherwise a fine copy). modern quarter calf clamshell box with inner cloth folder