Artist John Fery (1859-1934) was born in Austria and immigrated to the United States where he eventually settle in Seattle. During his career, Fery painted many scenes under contract for the Great Northern Railway. He based this waterfront scene on a historical photograph. Ballast Island, as the name implies, was where ships coming into the bay would dump their ballast. It became one of the few places where native people were tolerated and allowed to reside. The large number of canoes gathered along the waterfront indicate that it is autumn hop picking time when native people came from as far away as British Columbia to work in the hopfields.