Cover Art Description:
The Far North could beckon explorer, fur trader, and artist alike. Indeed, the lure of the exotic and unknown that drew Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie to Canada's western coast in 1793 briefly enticed Montana's cowboy artist Charles M. Russell northward for the first time almost a century later. Although Russell spent only a few months in Alberta in summer 1888, he returned frequently and in 1912 had his heart set on a three-month excursion from Edmonton up the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. It did not come to pass, but his fascination with the Far North left a small body of work, including Indians Coming in on Great Slave Lake, alternately titled Indian Canoe Party (watercolor on paper, 12" x 14", 1906). The painting is reproduced on the front cover for the first time since Russell's death in 1926 courtesy of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, where it is on loan from the A. G. Holter family.
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