Drawn by John A. Fraser and engraved by John Karst, Watching for Deer illustrates one of the chapters of the ambitious book Picturesque Canada: the country as it was and is. The scene is a romantic vision of Ontario nature, embellished with imagery that Fraser favoured. It shows a canoe drawn up on a stony shore. Adding to the picturesque effect, a man leans idly on a paddle, gazing at the horizon, while his companion smokes a pipe near a fire. The reproduction of this print in a book like Picturesque Canada helped to promote the tourist industry and consolidate a national image of Canada through its landscape.

The quasi-photographic realism of John A. Fraser’s works probably stemmed from his experience as a colourist for the photographer William Notman. The artist’s fiery, ambitious temperament cost him more than a few friends in the Canadian art world. His already contentious relationship with Lucius R. O’Brien further soured when O’Brien, as art director of Picturesque Canada, chose mostly American artists for the book, slighting his Canadian peers. Fraser, whose sketches O’Brien rejected (with the exception of Watching for Deer) left Toronto for the Canadian West the following year and later moved to the United States.