Episode 17: Tom Thomson‘s Art and his Introduction to Algonquin Park

ALGONQUIN DEFINING MOMENTS

Episode 17: Tom Thomson's Art and his Introduction to Algonquin Park

On Sunday July 8th a little over 104 years ago, Tom Thomson was wearing 'khaki trousers, white canvas shoes, a lumberman’s grey woolen shirt and no hat' as he headed off south down Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park. According to the Algonquin Park weather station, the average temperature that day was 16.4 degrees Celsius and about a centimeter and a half of rain had fallen.

As all good outdoorsmen do, Tom likely had checked to make sure his spare portaging paddle and a little food were properly tied in place, his tackle box and his sketching outfit were beside him and his trolling line set before he pushed off the dock that dull and wet day. Unfortunately, that would be the last time that Tom Thomson was ever seen or heard from again.

This is the first of a three-part series on the life, the body and the legend of Canada’s artistic icon Tom Thomson. In Part 1, I focus mostly on his time in Algonquin Park, some of the people he met, mostly on his journey as an artist. Part 2 will be mostly about what happened to his body after it rose to the surface of Canoe Lake on July 16th 1917. In Part 3, I will focus on the mystery and mythology that has grown up around him since the late 1960s and discuss why he has become such a part of the Canadian national identity. Note thatIf you are interested in listening to more of Ian Tamblyn’s Group of Seven music check out his website at www.iantamblyn.com.

Biographical References

• Roy MacGregor’s 2011 Northern Light
• Gregory Klages’s 2016 The Many Deaths of Tom Thomson and Death on a Painted Lake website https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/thomson/home/indexen.html
• Sherrill Grace’s Inventing Tom Thomson
• Blodwen Davies 1967 reprint of Tom Thomson: The Story of a Man who Looked for Beauty and Truth in the Wilderness (plus discussions of her 1935 version by Grace and Klages)
• Ottelyn Addison and Elizabeth Harwood’s 1969 Tom Thomson: The Algonquin Years
• William Little’s 1970 The Tom Thomson Mystery
• Bernard Shaw’s 2003 Third Edition of Canoe Lake Algonquin Park, Tom Thomson and other Mysteries
• Discussions of Joan Murray’s contributions in Klages and Grace’s books
• Neil Lehto’s 2005 Algonquin Elegy
• Mary Garland’s 2015 Algonquin Park’s Mowat- Little Town of Big Dreams
• Harold Town and David Wilcox’s 1977 Tom Thomson: The Silence and the Storm
• And last but not least Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2002 Tom Thomson, Edited by Dennis Reid