Stuart Reid, “Island Sketches: Thoughts on the Watercolour Paintings of Doris McCarthy”, “Celebrating Life: The Art of Doris McCarthy”, The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, 1999, page 231.
Writing of the common compositional arrangement of McCarthy's watercolours, which speak to the detailed and layered depiction of “Packing for the Canoe Trip”, Reid notes that McCarthy often “sets up the major horizon line at the golden mean of the page – a little less than two-thirds up from the bottom. There is a trademark 'folding' of the imagined space into a trinity: foreground, midground, far distance and sky; that recurs no matter her subject. It often seems as though the foreground is less distinct than the midground, fading into washes at the bottom of the page.” We witness this structuring within the Arctic watercolour, the eye drawn first to the colourful caravan in the “midground” of the composition, the surrounding landscape coming alive as the viewer's gaze settles within the composition.
