Provenance

Dominion Gallery, Montreal

Private collection

Heffel Fine Art, Nov. 26, 2015, lot #144

Private collection

Literature

Stanley Munn / Patricia Cucman, To See What He Saw, J.E.H. MacDonald and the O’Hara Years, 1924-1932,

Illustrated p.70.

J.E.H. MacDonald first traveled to the Rockies in 1924, returning every year until 1930. He had already become accustomed to wilderness hiking and camping with his fellow Group of Seven members, and in the Rockies he clambered up goat paths and rough tracks, loaded with his sketching gear, to capture stunning views such as this fine sketch painted above Lake Louise in 1930.

Before Lawrence Grassi built the present-day Oesa Trail in the 1950s, mountaineers and hikers followed part of the creek from Yukness Lake to reach Lake Victoria. Mountain Stream is a sketch that shows a scene from the old Oesa hiking route used by these early mountaineers. This is a view that few O’Hara visitors have witnessed since the modern trail was created and carried hikers away from the old trail. This portion of the old Oesa Trail is heavily overgrown and no longer readily accessible.

MacDonald had written in his September 4, 1930, diary entry that he “went to look at waterfall on stream and chose viewpoint for sketch some

time.”

Stanley Munn / Patricia Cucman, To See What He Saw, J.E.H. MacDonald and the O’Hara Years, 1924-1932.