Governor General's party crossing Lake of the Woods, 1881, by Sydney Prior Hall - The Canadian West - Exhibitions

In 1881, the Governor General of Canada, Sir John Douglas Campbell (the Marquess of Lorne) went on a much-publicized tour to promote the agricultural potential of western Canada. Accompanying the entourage were a number of foreign journalists, among whom was "special artist" Hall. Here Hall sketched the Governor General's party as it crossed Lake of the Woods. Since the transcontinental railway was still under construction, much of the Governor General's western tour was by boat and carriage and, at various times, included a contingent of North-West Mounted Police.

Although Governor General Campbell's tour ostensibly promoted western Canada as an economically-rewarding destination for British immigrants, it served Canada's western agenda in other related ways. For example, the Canadian government desperately wanted to differentiate its west from the wild frontier south of the 49th parallel. Campbell's tour, and the reports and fine art created as a result, heightened this differentiation by demonstrating to the world that the Canadian West was morally superior to the American West. Thanks to Canada's benevolent approach to its First Nations, so the reasoning went, and the presence of such equalizing factors as the North-West Mounted Police, the Canadian West was so safe and secure that it could afford to send its head of state on tour through the region. Frontier tours for a head of state were out of the question for the Americans, especially in the 1880s when the Indian Wars were at their peak. In this respect, the Governor General's tour also helped to demarcate and justify the international border - north of the border newcomers to the West could expect to find honesty and integrity, and south of the border there were only lies and unkept promises.