Head of the Bow River, Alberta Rockies
Gallery / Current Painting
Acrylic on Canvas
30” x 40”
This painting was inspired by an unforgettable trip in my adventurous career as a Canadian landscape painter. I took a weeklong horse pack trip into the Canadian Rockies with a dozen visual artists, and with real cowboys as guides.
Our experience as wanna-be cowboys was awesome, if not oftentimes grueling. Aside from dealing with aching bones after each day on horseback, we had to learn to properly care for our horses before and after each hard day’s excursion. That meant walking them as a warm-up first thing every morning before we could head up the arduous mountain trails, as well as brushing and grooming them at the end of their hard day. This often resulted in a strong bond being forged between our horses and each of us. This affection was often retaliated by soft nuzzles, snorts and whinnies from our equine friends. The reward was palpable!
The meals served up by the cooks at our mountain base camp were indeed something to write home about. Breakfast was the full meal deal – bacon and eggs, toast, coffee, and then a substantially packed lunch for our horse trip to the higher levels of the mountain range, to work “en plein air” at our painting and sketching. The final reward was a really great supper to come home to, following the hard day’s ride after our art-making and camera work.
Evenings around the campfire at the base camp were always a stellar experience. At times a guitar player, perhaps a harmonica, wild tales of bravado, or just quiet discourse. Such a great experience.
Life in the campsite situation could be entertaining, especially for a bunch of city slickers! Trying for some shut-eye in our sleeping bags on the hard and lumpy ground with three other tent mates (including the one who snored loudly all night), and enduring those cold outdoor showers at the crack of dawn, plus the time when it snowed overnight on our last night and we woke up with our tent top laden with heavy snow and the tent collapsed in our faces. We struggled to get the tent upright again, but the four of us were so buckled over with laughter that it was an almost impossible job! Crawling back into our now cold and wet sleeping bags in our cold and wet clothing made sleeping for the rest of the night cold, wet and impossible!
This scene is from that infamous last night of our Horse Pack Trip, when it had snowed all night. Very cold! Even the horses look dejected.
Laurie Cormack caring for her horse, “Boots”, after the day’s ride.
