Fishing Lodges of the Clallams, Vancouver Island

In April 1847 Kane spent time on Vancouver Island, visiting the south shore of the Juan de Fuca Strait, where there was a Clallam village not far from Fort Victoria. This painting is characteristic of the artist's oeuvre: while eager to create a visual record of First Nations lifestyles, he produced paintings in a distinctly romantic manner. The lightly constructed fishing lodges he has portrayed could easily be dismantled, transported by canoe and reinstalled at a new site, as the vagaries of fishing required.