By fall of 1910, Henderson was providing illustrations for a monthly magazine, The Trail, first published in Regina, and then in 1911, in Winnipeg. The Trail was profusely illustrated and featured political articles related to farm and industrial concerns, fiction, including murder mysteries and tales with dramatic Western themes, as well as articles on Indiginous peoples, poetry and humour. A typical magazine of its time, The Trail focused on Western development and Boosterism; many of the full-page advertisements were for real estate and boomtown expansion. Henderson’s first signed graphic work appears in the September, 1910 issue and continues until late 1911, when the magazine ceased publication. During that time, he was the chief graphic artist, contributing colour covers, frontispieces and the majority of the lithographed illustrations, which were, with few exceptions, in black and white. Henderson’s colour covers for The Trail, such as the dramatic winter train scene for the February, 1911 issue, were initially rendered in gouache and then produced as an offset lithograph for the magazine.
James Henderson (from left)
CPR Locomotive in Winter, c. 1910-11
gouache on card
27.5 x 20.0 cm
Collection of James Lanigan, Calgary, Alberta.
CPR Locomotive in Winter (Cover of The Trail magazine, February 1911), 1911
Courtesy of the Manitoba Legislative Library, Winnipeg.