Canadian landscape painter Henry J DeForest arrived at Bluff Harbor, NZ from Melbourne, Victoria on January 16, 1888 and departed from Auckland on January 26, 1891 destined for Honolulu and San Francisco. During December 1889 he embarked on a two week sketching trip up the Whanganui River by canoe.

H. J. DeForest’s 18th Century Paintings of the Whanganui River, is an article written for the 2019 Annual Journal of the Friends of the Whanganui River Inc. published in March 2020. The full colour magazine is produced annually by this New Zealand not for profit group to help fulfil its aims of documenting life and activities on and around the river, and historical events in the river’s past. A copy of the article can be found at the following link – Whanganui.

Also included in the Friends of the Whanganui River 2019 Annual is a transcription of a newspaper article written by Henry DeForest and published in the Wanganui Herald of December 28, 1889. A copy of this article is included at the following link – DeForest Canoe Trip.