The Song of Hiawatha 1950). American landscape painters referred to the poem to add an epic dimension to their patriotic celebration of the wonders of the national landscape. Albert Bierstadt presented his sunset piece, "The Departure of Hiawatha," to Longfellow in 1868 when the poet was in England to receive an honorary degree at the University of Cambridge. Other examples include Thomas Moran's "Fiercely the Red Sun Descending, Burned His Way along the Heavens" (1875), held by the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the panoramic waterfalls of "Hiawatha and Minnehaha on their Honeymoon" (1885) by Jerome Thompson (1814 – 1886). Thomas Eakins made
Olympian Hiawatha the most scenic section through the Bitterroot Mountains. Major parts of "Olympian"'s route were acquired by the Soo Line Railroad (now Canadian Pacific Railway), and by the Burlington Northern Railroad (now BNSF Railway). The former Milwaukee Road (now Canadian Pacific) mainline from Chicago to St. Paul, Minnesota continues to see high passenger ridership on Amtrak's Chicago-Milwaukee "Hiawatha Service" and Chicago-Minneapolis-Pacific Northwest "Empire Builder". Several scenic sections of the route of the "Olympian Hiawatha" have become public trails and park land. These include the "Route of the Hiawatha" in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, the "Route of the Olympian" along Montana's