It was a gray and stormy day along the Bow river in Banff, Alberta when I snapped this photo. Like my last posting, this painting is of a Lodgepole Pine (I found out that it is all one word, so I must go back and change it on my blog posting from Friday), and as I thought, the name gave a clue as to its use. I said to my husband that it was probably used to build native longhouses, but I was showing my eastern Canadian heritage, because longhouses were mainly built in north eastern North America by such tribes as the Iroquois and Mohawk.
Here in the west, lodgepole pines were (and still are) the favorite choice for tepee poles. Fifteen to eighteen lodgepole pines is the typical number used to construct a tepee. Long, straight and lightweight were the characteristics of the species that made it ideal for horse transport in nomadic buffalo hunting cultures. Tribes made long journeys across the plains to harvest lodgepole pines that only grew in mountainous regions.
No wonder the Lodgepole Pine is the provincial tree of Alberta, Canada.
sold
10x10 oil on canvas