An Artist in the Wilds of Northern Canada

  

There was a time, between 1895 and into the twenties, when there was a huge demand for Canadian novels in Britain and the United States. The demand was met by Ernest Thompson Seton, Robert W. Service, Charles G.D. Roberts, William Alexander Fraser, Ralph Connor and the eccentric American author Oliver Curwood.

These authors painted a picture of Canada as a grim, inhospitable, frozen wasteland inhabited by hungry wolves, angry bears, savage Indians and treacherous half breeds. Many of the bestsellers were picked up by Hollywood who from 1907 onward produced 507 motion pictures with a Canadian background (see ‘Hollywood’s Canada’ by Pierre Berton, 1975). The movies were widely inaccurate and fostered a caricature image of Canada and its inhabitants that persists to this day.

In 1872 Sir William Francis Butler wrote ‘The Great Lone Land; A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-west of America’ and the title stuck. The Rev. Egerton Ryerson wrote ‘Winter Adventures of Three Boys in the Great Lone Land’ (1899) and Frederick A.W. Gisborne wrote ‘The Great Lone Land’ (1912). Rudyard Kipling dubbed Canada ‘Our Lady of the Snows’ in a poem written in 1897.

At the turn of the century Arthur Heming (1870-1940) was the preeminent promoter of the idea of the empty Arctic wasteland to American readers of New York’s illustrated Metropolitan Magazine. Heming illustrated the works of the ‘Canadian Kipling’ W.A. Fraser as well as writing and illustrating his own winter romances ‘Spirit of the Lake’ and ‘The Drama of the Forests.’


I have previously posted short biographies of Arthur Heming and W.A. Fraser HERE.

‘An Artist in the Wilds of Northern Canada,’ by Arthur Heming, New York: The Metropolitan Magazine, Sept. 1905

‘Arthur Heming an Illustrator of Wild Animal Life,’ New York: The Metropolitan Magazine, Oct. 1903

Arthur Heming (1870-1940)

By John Adcock

Arthur Heming was a contemporary of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts and Ernest Thompson Seton, the originators of the realistic Canadian wildlife story. He was born Arthur Henry Howard Heming in Paris, Ontario on 17 January 1870. He studied art at the Hamilton Art School, the New York Art Student’s League and under illustrator Frank Brangwyn in London, England. He was author and illustrator of Spirit Lake (1907), The Drama of the Forests (1921), and The Living Forest (1921), and an associate of the Group of Seven. He worked as an illustrator for Harper’s Magazine and the Canadian Magazine. He died at Hamilton, Ontario on 31 October 1940.

His love of art and nature was inherited from his parents. “My mother sympathised with my earliest efforts. She encouraged me always with love and understanding. Father took an interest in my love of nature till I took to running away from school to the woods.”

Heming illustrated two wildlife books by William Alexander Fraser, “The Canadian Kipling,” Mooswa and others of the Boundaries (1900), and The Outcasts (1901).

The Boston Herald praised Mooswa and others of the Boundaries

“Takes its place at once beside the Jungle Book. A group of stories capitally told, of the lives and doings of the animals.

The Chicago Tribune said of The Outcasts

“It has the freedom and mystery of that great unknown country up towards the Arctic circle, and the fascination of animal existence.”

W. A. Fraser was born at River John, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, in 1859. He was educated in New York and Boston and spent seven years prospecting oil in India and a further six years prospecting in the Canadian Northwest. He began his literary career as a journalist on the Detroit Free Press. Fraser wrote numerous short stories and novels about India, the Canadian wilderness, and horse-racing. He died at Toronto 9 Nov 1933.