474
The Coming of the Fur Brigade
FES Title: The Coming of the Fur Brigade
Alternate Titles: The Fur Brigade (1912, 1913, 1915); The Coming of the Fur Traders
[1979]
Date: 01/09/1912
Size: 30″H x 42″W
Medium: oil-on-canvas
Type: illustration
Published: Schoonover, Frank E. “The Fur Harvesters.” Harper’s Monthly Magazine, October 1912: 110.
caption: The bronze face of the chief is lifted to proud scrutiny of his friends

Official Catalogue of the Department of Fine Arts, Panama-Pacific International Exposition (with Awards) San Francisco, California. San Francisco: The Wahlgreen Co, 1915: 179. [not pictured]

Seton, Ernest Thompson. “Is Our Fur Supply in Danger?” World’s Work, March 1924: 499.
caption: The return of the fur fleet is to the frontier post what a Caesarian Triumph was to Imperial Rome. Laden with the results of a winter’s trapping and shooting, it is greeted with a rejoicing pent-up for many moons.

“Sketch Book…featuring the work of outstanding Delaware artists.” Dateline Delaware, September-October 1960: 27.
caption: “Coming of the Cree and Ojibwa Trappers to Hudson Bay Post, at Long Lake, Canada”. This painting was used as an illustration in Schoonover’s story, “The Edge of the Wilderness”, published in Harper’s Monthly. In the General Motors Building collection. At lower left is the original pencil sketch.

Apgar, John P., Jr. Frank E. Schoonover, Painter-Illustrator, A Bibliography. Morristown, NJ: John F. Apgar, Jr., 1969: cover and 13.
caption: The bronze face of the chief is lifted to proud scrutiny of his friends. Illustration from the Story the Fur Harvesters by F.E. schoonover, Harper’s Monthly Magazine, October 1912.

Schoonover, Frank E. The Edge of the Wilderness, edited by Cortlandt Schoonover. Toronto: Methuen, 1974: 110.
caption: The Bronze Face of the Chief is Lifted

Brandywine River Museum. Frank E. Schoonover, Illustrator. Chadds Ford, PA: Brandywine River Museum, 1979: 25, 47.
caption: The Coming of the Fur Traders, 1912
Inscription: lr: Frank E. Schoonover / ’12
Annotations:
Exhibitions: 1912 WSFA; 1913 North Congregational; 1913 PAFA; 1913 New York; 1914 Carnegie; 1915 Panama-Pacific (catalog); 1979 FES (catalog)
Comments: NT 4×5 [3]; index; edit
Commentary: “In the spring and summer of 1911, I started north from Jackfish on the north coast of Lake Superior and canoed by the Hudson Bay Long Lake Post route down the Kenogami to the James Bay Country. This long canoe trip gave me a fine idea of the summer life of the Indians, I saw the coming of the fur brigades to the Post, the trading of the winder’s harvest of skins, and the spending of the credit.” (Schoonover, The Edge of the Wilderness, 136)

“At a Hudson Bay Post called Long Lake Post, I had the rare good luck to see the Chief of the tribe and the members of his hunting party come to the post in their fleet of bark canoes. I saw the ceremony of his landing; the queer and strange way in which the Indians that were already at the post greet the chief; the putting up of the bark wig-wams; and last of all the trading of the spring hunt of skins at the company store,” wrote Schoonover to Thomas B. Walls, Esq. at Harper and Brothers on July 16, 1911. (archives, correspondence)
For further commentary, see #473 and #475.
See related photograph by Schoonover of Ojibwa indians in Canada. (#474p)

Provenance: ( Sold by artist to Donaldson Brown (June 5, 1927); inherited by Greta Brown Layton, Wilmington, Delaware; descended in the family to private collection