First Chain of the Rocky Mountains above Fort McKenzie

Description

While en route to Fort McKenzie on August 7, Maximilian noted in his journal for that day that he had glimpsed what he supposed to be the distant summits of the Rocky Mountains. On September 9, shortly before his departure from the fort, he again reported that he and Bodmer went into the hills above the river "to paint... the Bear's Paw and to make a drawing of the first chain of the Rocky Mountains," actually an isolated uplift known today as the Highwoods. Bodmer's watercolor version of this view, with the figures of Indians and horses in the right foreground, appeared as Tableau 44 in the aquatint atlas published in Europe.