Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Winslow Homer, Canoe in Rapids, 1897. Watercolor over graphite on off-white wove paper, 35.4 × 53.3 cm (13 15/16 × 21 in).

Francis Lee Jaques, Picture Rock at Crooked Lake (Return of the Voyageur), 1947. Oil on canvas, 83.8 x 106.6 cm.

Mark Hamel, Crossing the Shallows, Snake River, 2014. Oil on mounted linen, 40.64 × 50.8 cm.

John Webber, Tereoboo, King of Owyhee, bringing presents to Capt. Cook.

Graham Herbert (Hornby Island, British Columbia), Sacred Escort, 1994. Watercolor on paper, 36.83 x 52.07 cm.

Jean Antoine Theodore Gudin, Jacques Cartier Discovering the St. Lawrence River, 1847. Oil on canvas, 142 x 266 cm.

Paul Kane, White Mud Portage, Saulteaux, ca. 1776–1780.

Eastman Johnson, Canoe of the Indians, ca. 1856–1857.

Seth Eastman, Rice Gatherers, 1867.

Frances Anne Hopkins, The Red River Expedition at Kakabeka Falls, 1877.

Théophile Hamel, Portrait de Samuel de Champlain, 1870. Oil on canvas, 66 x 86 cm.

George Agnew Reid, The Arrival of Champlain at Quebec, 1909. Pastel on wove paper, 62 × 43 cm.

After Hyacinthe Rigaud, Portrait of Louis, XIV, after 1701.

The painter John James Audubon is more well-known for his images of North American birds, but he also painted other wildlife, such as these two beavers working on a tree.

Arthur Heming, The Voyageur, 1915. Oil on canvas, 76.7 × 102.2 cm.

Abby Fuller Abbe, The Voyageur, ca. 1860.

Frederic Remington, Radisson and Groseilliers, 1905. Oil on canvas, 110.2 x 194.3 cm.

George Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, 1845. Oil on canvas, 73.7 × 92.7 cm.

This 1822 watercolor from the Manitoba Museum’s Hudson’s Bay Company Collection, illustrates a canot du maître carrying two officers.

Adam Sherriff Scott, Chief Trader Archibald McDonald Descending the Fraser, 1828, ca. 1942. 81.28 x 63.5 cm.