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Secondary sourcePainting1905

Radisson and Groseilliers

Frederic Remington · 1905

A 1905 painting imagining Radisson and his brother-in-law Groseilliers paddling a canoe on the Great Lakes with Indigenous guides.

This romanticized painting shows Radisson as the standing leader of a canoe expedition with Groseilliers.

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Painting of a large birchbark canoe on a calm lake lined with lily pads and reeds, carrying a standing European-dressed man in a long coat and about eight paddlers, some with feathered headdresses. Dark pine forest lines the far shore under a pale sky, with the scene reflected in the water.
Frederic Remington, Radisson and Groseilliers, 1905. Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming.

About this source

What it is

This painting was made in 1905 by American artist Frederic Remington and is held at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. It shows a large birchbark canoe on a calm lake, carrying a standing European-dressed man and about eight paddlers, some wearing feathered headdresses, with forest and sky reflected in the water.

Why it matters

Painted more than two centuries after the events it depicts, this work shows how the early-20th-century fascination with the 'frontier' reshaped Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers into romantic heroic explorers. It tells us more about how later Americans imagined the fur trade than about the events themselves.

Look closer

  • Why is Radisson shown standing while Groseilliers sits?
  • What might the artist be suggesting about leadership and status in this scene?
  • How does this image compare with what you know about the real hardships of fur-trade travel?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Pierre-Esprit Radisson on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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