After he returned from Germany, Lawren Harris’s first Canadian sketching trip was to Quebec’s Laurentians in fall 1908, which resulted in his first major Canadian landscape canvas, Deserted Barn, Laurentians. In 1911, Harris met J.E.H. MacDonald, and in the fall of 1913, the soon-to-be fellow Group of Seven artists traveled to the Laurentians. Harris did a number of small panels on this trip, including Laurentians, verified by the verso inscription by MacDonald’s son, Thoreau—although it is uncertain whether this indicates the painting was once in Thoreau's possession. In some of Harris’s Laurentian scenes he used a select palette of warm and cool earth tones, and here he used primarily taupe, umber, brown and orange. The central haystacks, with their unusual forms, are a focal point, contrasted with long, fluid brush-strokes that give rhythm and flow to the surrounding cultivated land. In the hills behind, the oranges and golds of autumn smoulder through the trees. Harris makes the juxtaposition of rustic farmland and wild nature vital and fresh in this engaging rural scene.