William G. Boardman was a follower of Thomas Cole, the Hudson River School landscape artist who inspired many European American artists to go into the wilderness and depict natural landscapes. This artistic movement reflected the ideals of Romanticism, which emphasize emotions, individualization, and the beauty of nature. This type of composition, featuring a foreground tree, a middle ground body of water, and background mountain peaks was pioneered by Cole but had become a formula by the mid- nineteenth century.

The figures in the painting reflects Boardman's idealization of Indigenous people living in pristine wilderness. By 1850, this image would have been an uncommon sight given the forcible displacement of many Indigenous people from the eastern US through policies like the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Boardman's scene raises important questions about nostalgia, historical bias, and the ways they reinforce each other.