artists, most importantly, her grandfather Sir William Beechey, a portrait painter and member of the Royal Academy of Arts, Lady Beechey, a miniaturist, and Frances' father was an accomplished water-colorist, thought to have been trained in the topographical landscape. Hopkins, already have been exposed to fine arts in her youth by her family, saw the chance to travel to Canada and paint, was seen by her as both a personal venture, as well as a professional opportunity. Hopkins' earliest known sketches of Canada coincide with her immediate arrival in Canada from 1858 to 1860, which were prominently scenes of Lachine and Montréal. During her travels outdoors, she would primarily be working with watercolour, which was a typical medium for outdoor artwork at the time due to how easy it is to transport. The travels that would influence her well-known oil paintings later on were mostly inspired from her tours of the fur trading routes with her husband—during 1864, 1866, and 1869, they visited the Upper Great Lakes and the Mattawa (Ont.) and Ottawa rivers. During the years between 1869 and 1880, Hopkins completed some of her most well-known oil paintings in her studio in Hampstead, England upon returning there permanently. In 1869, Hopkins exhibited her oil painting Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior at the Royal Academy in London. This marked an important turning point in her career because her popularity in Britain gradually became larger, as the romantic atmosphere her paintings possessed was highly appealing to the British audience, and they sold better on the London art market compared to that of the North American art market. The next oil painting of hers that would be exhibited at the Royal Academy was Canoe Travelling in the Backwoods of Canada. Between the years of 1860 and 1891, Hopkins would exhibit a total of eleven times at the Royal Academy. Other well-known paintings of hers include Shooting the Rapids (1879), Canoe Manned by Voyageurs Passing a Waterfall (1869), Canoe Party Around a Campfire (1870), and Voyageurs at Dawn (1871). Landscape painting at the time was considered rigorous for a woman, however, Hopkins' travels to Canada allowed Hopkins to establish her reputation as a professional painter that specialised in landscape painting of the Canadian wilderness. Her painting has strong use of narrative, stylistic and photographic language. There is debate as to what artistic style of painting Hopkins conforms to, however she is