Between May 1846 and October 1848, Paul Kane travelled from Toronto, Ontario, to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, following the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-trade routes during which time he sketched the landscapes and the peoples he encountered. Later, in his Toronto studio referring to his sketches for inspiration and details he developed formal oil-on-canvas and oil-on-board paintings. Hunting Ducks depicts a Northern Algonquian technique of hunting where a dog is trained to run back-and-forth along a beach and the dog’s actions in turn tended to attract curious ducks to within a hunting range of a waiting hunter.