Indian Camp, Colville

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. Takumakst, translated as “the Fishery,” was a village of Colville summer houses located at Kettle Falls on the Columbia River and inhabited during the fishing season. Paul Kane wrote in Wanderings of an Artist: “The lodges are formed of mats of rushes stretched on poles. A flooring is made of sticks, raised three or four feet from the ground, leaving the space beneath it entirely open, and forming a cool, airy, and shady place, in which to hang their salmon to dry.” (1859:309)