Page 102 - TheRussellCatalogue2016

132CHARLES FRITZIn the Land of the Kootenai oil36 x 58 inches$40,000–50,000Wouldn’t it have been a privilege to see the Flathead Valley when there were only scattered Kootenai villages in it? Imagine the ponds and massive ponderosas that forested it and meadows connected only by dirt paths and travois trails that wove through the luxuriant, high grass. No tra c, just the sound of the immense silence punctuated occasionally by the scream of a hawk. In this painting of a Kootenai shing camp, they are seen using a sturgeon nosed canoe, unique to this area. It was a design whose stealth made it best for gliding noiselessly up on animals at the water’s edge and parted the dense reeds along the shorelines with ease.Charles Fritz