Search for the Blue Goose

J. Dewey Soper (1893-1982) was a remarkable artist, scientist, and explorer. Towards the end of a brilliant career in the 1970's, he painted over two hundred watercolors based on his on-the-spot pen-and-ink drawings, sketches, and photographs, made between 1923 and 1931. These watercolors depict an exquisite array of scenes and events from his four expeditions to the Arctic. During this time, Soper explored Baffin Island as a natural scientist for the Canadian Museum of Natural History, traversing 50,000 kilometers of territory in search of the blue goose. The quest brought Soper international recognition as an ornithologist when, with the help of the Inuit, he reached the nesting site of the blue goose at Bowman Bay in the spring of 1929.