Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery purchased this painting through an auction house. It was one of several we purchased from a single seller's collection of historic California paintings. This painting came with the title Raccoon Straits. We suppose the painting was given this title by the artist himself.

Raccoon Straits is part of San Francisco Bay between Angel Island and the Tiburon ferry docks. In Spanish, the word Tiburon is the word for shark, more specifically a subspecies of leopard shark native to San Francisco Bay. In the last Ice Age nearly 20,000 years ago, the Sacramento River ran through a gorge here and into the Golden Gate Canyon, running out to the coast which was considerably further west than it is today.

In 1814, the British 26 gun sloop of War, HMS Raccoon, was damaged off the coast of Oregon, but stayed afloat to reach San Francisco Bay. It was repaired on the beach at Ayalo Cove near the present day location of the ferry boat dock on Angel Island. The scene of this painting looks at a sunset from this very location.

Hagerup was an 18 year old Norwegian artist who joined to merchant marine to travel to America, landing in Portland in 1882. Ten yearsl later, moved to San Francisco in 1892 at the age of 28. He had an interest in ships and would have been interested in the story of HMS Raccoon. He lived near Ocean Beach just a half block south of Golden Gate Park. He worked as a stevadore to suppliment his income from painting.