IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT SHOW BUT!!!!!
MUSKOKA DISTRICT BAND CONCERT IS RAINED-OUT - WHAT A BUMMER
GLOBAL WARMING? SPRING IN THE WINTER! STORMS! RAIN! WELL, IT MIGHT BE NOVEL TO HAVE A CONCERT THAT IS ACTUALLY SNOWED-OUT. WEATHER-WISE, IT JUST MIGHT HAPPEN. BUT I HAVE TO TELL YOU, A LOT OF FOLKS WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE SEASON OPENING CONCERT, ON SUNDAY NIGHT, TO GET THE 2012 BARGE SEASON OFF AND RUNNING. I'VE BEEN HYPING THIS YEAR'S SEASON FOR MONTHS, IT SEEMS, AND THEN, BY GOLLY, WHAT WE DIDN'T GET IN SNOWFALL LAST WINTER, WE'RE GETTING NOW, IN RAIN, FOR THE THIRSTY GARDENS. WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ANTIQUE CO-OPERATIVE DOWN SOUTH, WHEN ANDREW GOT THE CALL, FROM FRED SCHULZ, THE MUSKOKA DISTRICT BAND HAD DECIDED TO CANCEL THEIR APPEARANCE, DUE TO THE THREAT OF AN EARLY EVENING THUNDERSTORM. SONS ANDREW AND ROBERT ARE THE BARGE'S TECHNICAL STAFF. WHILE FRED IS UNDERSTANDABLY UPSET WITH THE TURN OF EVENTS, HE KNOWS MOST CONCERT-GOERS WILL UNDERSTAND. FRED'S GOT SOME ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECTING CONCERTS THIS YEAR, NOT HAVE A SUITABLE ALTERNATE SITE TO USE FOR SIMILAR RAIN-OUTS. HE WAS OFFERED THE NEW TERRY FOX ROOM, AT THE RECREATION CENTRE, BUT IT DOES NOT HOLD ENOUGH PEOPLE TO ACCOMMODATE THE LARGE CONCERTS; AND LARGE BANDS, SUCH AS THE DISTRICT BAND AND THE BIFOCALS, BOTH CONDUCTED BY NEIL BARLOW. I'M NOT SURE WHETHER FRED WAS OFFERED THE OPERA HOUSE THIS SEASON OR NOT, WHICH MAY EXPLAIN, IN PART, WHY THERE HAVE BEEN NO RAIN RE-LOCATIONS OFFERED THIS YEAR. WE'VE GOT EIGHT CONCERTS LEFT AND WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF RAIN? WELL, PRETTY GOOD. I KNOW FRED WILL BE UPSET BY THIS, AND BEGIN WORRYING ABOUT THE WEATHER ALL OVER AGAIN…..FOR NEXT SUNDAY'S, CANADA DAY CONCERT, FEATURING THE BIFOCALS. LIGHT RAIN IS ONE THING. LIGHT RAIN WITH LIGHTNING BOLTS IS ANOTHER. HOPE YOU WILL GIVE MUSIC ON THE BARGE A GO NEXT WEEK. LET'S HOPE FOR A WEE BIT OF A DRY SPELL. WE NEED TO TEST THAT NEW DECKING ON THE NEWLY REFURBISHED BARGE.
PAINTER, TOM THOMSON PERISHED 95 YEARS AGO IN ALGONQUIN PARK
AS A LEAD UP TO THE 95TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF CANADIAN ARTIST TOM THOMSON, I HAVE PREPARED A SHORT SERIES OF ARTICLES, REGARDING HIS ALLEGED DROWNING DEATH IN ALGONQUIN'S CANOE LAKE, IN AN AROUND THE 7TH OF JULY, 1917. WAS IT DROWNING BY MISADVENTURE? OR WAS IT MURDER? IS THOMSON BURIED IN THE FAMILY PLOT AT LEITH, ONTARIO? OR IS HE STILL IN THE ALGONQUIN FOREST, WERE HE WAS INITIALLY BURIED? A LOT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT HIS DEATH, AND THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES THAT DEVELOPED AROUND THE TIME OF HIS DISAPPEARANCE. COULD A HIGHLY CAPABLE CANOEIST, HAVE TOPPLED OUT OF HIS CANOE, ON A CALM LAKE IN THE EARLY PART OF THE DAY? WOULD HE HAVE BEEN HAVING A PEE OVER THE GUNNEL OF THE CANOE, AND FALLEN, HITTING HIS HEAD ON THE WAY INTO THE WATER. THIS WAS ALLEGED BY WELL KNOWN TRAPPER / GUIDE, RALPH BICE, IN A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, IN THE LATE 1990'S. OR WAS THE WHOLE EVENT MUCH MORE SINISTER, INVOLVING A GIRL, MONEY OWED, THE WAR, OR POLITICS? FOR THE NEXT FEW BLOGS, I'D LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU SOME THOMSON MATERIAL I'VE BEEN PREPARING FOR THIS 95TH ANNIVERSARY. THE ONLY THING I HAVEN'T DONE YET THIS YEAR, IS TO MAKE IT BACK UP TO MOWAT, ON CANOE LAKE, TO DIG THE OLD BONES UP MYSELF. YES, IT'S TRUE. THERE ARE STILL BONES IN A GRAVE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO EMPTY. IN FACT, THIS CANADIAN LEGEND, HAS TWO GRAVES. EVIDENCE SHOWS, HE COULD BE IN BOTH OF THEM. FAMILY BELIEVES HE IS IN LEITH, WHERE HE WAS MOVED FROM THE ALGONQUIN GRAVE, SHORTLY AFTER A HASTY BURIAL, WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE ARTIST'S KIN. THE THOMSON FAMILY HIRED AN UNDERTAKER TO MOVE THE BODY, THAT JULY 1917, FROM ALGONQUIN TO LEITH (NEAR OWEN SOUND). BUT AN UNAUTHORIZED EXHUMATION IN THE 1950'S, BY JUDGE WILLIAM LITTLE, TURNED UP A SKELETON IN A SUPPOSEDLY EMPTY CANOE LAKE GRAVE. WHAT A CONUNDRUM. AND THEN THERE WERE THE MURDER ALLEGATIONS. TOM THOMSON WAS ONE OF CANADA'S GREATEST LANDSCAPE ARTISTS. HIS WAS A SHORT, PROLIFIC, AND EXCEPTIONAL CAREER. WE LOVE HIS ART, FEEL HAUNTED BY IT, AND WONDER ABOUT HIS TRAGIC DEMISE. IF IT WAS MURDER, A KILLER WAS NEVER IDENTIFIED, UNTIL LONG AFTER HIS DEATH. THERE WERE MANY SUSPICIONS. MANY THEORIES. A DEATHBED CONFESSION. THE ENDURING QUALITY OF ANY GOOD MYSTERY, IS THE FACT IT CAN NEVER TRULY BE SOLVED. IT WILL ALWAYS KEEP US GUESSING.
PLEASE JOIN ME FOR THIS 95TH ANNIVERSARY GLIMPSE BACK, AT THE SUMMER OF 1917, AND THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CANADIAN ARTIST, TOM THOMSON.
TO INITIATE THE 95TH ANNIVERSARY, I AM GOING TO PUBLISH THE FEATURE ARTICLE I WROTE FOR THE JULY ISSUE OF "THE GREAT NORTH ARROW," BECAUSE MOST OF MY READERS CAN'T GET A HOLD OF THIS WONDERFUL LITTLE PAPER, IN THIS PART OF MUSKOKA. I'M HOPING THEY WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE THEM AVAILABLE AT SOME POINT. IT IS PUBLISHED OUT OF DUNCHURCH, ONTARIO, AND IT IS LOADED FULL OF COMMUNITY NEWS. IT'S OLD SCHOOL, AND IT REMINDS ME OF MY OWN EARLY DAYS WORKING FOR THE COMMUNITY PRESS……THE ONES I ENJOYED THE MOST…..BECAUSE IT WAS SO RESPONSIVE TO ALL THE COMMUNITIES, INCLUDING HAMLETS AND VILLAGES IN THE REGION. THE NORTH ARROW HAS DONE A FABULOUS JOB OF REPRESENTING THEIR DISTRICT, AND THEY DON'T MIND HAVING A GRAVENHURST WRITER AS A CONTRIBUTOR.
(THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN AS AN EXCLUSIVE TO THE GREAT NORTH ARROW, JULY 2012)
IT WAS 95 YEARS AGO THAT TOM THOMSON PERISHED IN ALGONQUIN PARK
By Ted Currie
(Written exclusively for The Great North Arrow)
The legend has been 95 years in the making. It has been examined, analyzed, debunked and allegedly solved. Yet it endures, as does its mystery. It is a uniquely Canadian story. It is the allure of nature itself.
"Through the story of painting in Canada there stalks a tall, lean trailsman, with his sketch box and his paddle, an artist and dreamer who made the wilderness his cloister, and there worshipped nature in her secret moods," wrote art historian, Blodwen Davies, in her 1930 book, "Paddle and Palette." "Tom Thomson, in his brief and dramatic career, painted the north as it had never been painted before, and bequeathed to his people not only a few great canvases glowing with the essential significance of his own land, but also a new vitality, a new consciousness, a new emotion. The time was ripe for fulfillment. In his day Canada was stirring with a new faith, and out of the urge that moved the sentiment of his era, the spirit of Tom Thomson manifested itself."
Blodwen Davies was the first writer, interested in Thomson, to suggest there was something wrong with the 1917 Coroner's Report, regarding the artist's death while canoeing on Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake. Residents of the small Canoe Lake and Mowat Community, she talked to, for this small, initial biography of Thomson, were not in agreement with the "accidental drowning" theory, accounting for his sudden demise. She found surviving friends and area citizens were suspicious of several people who had disliked the artist, and who could have murdered him in July 1917. When she took her concerns to the provincial authority, to launch a latent investigation, she was told nothing was warranted. It has long been assumed the province wanted nothing to do with this kind of national story, with all its implications, and this suspicion held right into the 1970's, at least, when Judge William Little, encountered the same reluctance to re-open the Thomson case. Even when Little and company, dug up the former Thomson grave, at the old Mowat Cemetery, and found a body in the coffin that wasn't supposed to be there. Back in July 1917, the Thomson family, under direction his brother George Thomson, and assistance from Winnie Trainor, the artist's girlfriend at the time, ordered the body to be exhumed, for re-burial in Leith, Ontario, closer to home. Then who belonged, in life, to the bones found in the former artist's grave? Most close to the case, feel the the artist's body was never moved by the Huntsville undertaker….just a box of Algonquin earth, to give weight to the metal shipping container. It is all speculation of course, because the grave in Leith has never been exhumed, to find out what rests within.
It is ninety-five years since his mysterious death, which today, has become one of the most famous cold-cases in Canadian history. It began the night of the inquest, at the Bletcher family cottage, on Canoe Lake. The body had already been buried before the Coroner arrived by train, only hours after the grave had been filled in with Algonquin soil. The Coroner did not demand the body be removed from the grave for a proper autopsy, and it had been embalmed anyway, which would have corrupted at least part of the investigation. The accidental drowning theory was offered as evidence, by Dr. Howland, who had examined the body, shortly after it was found floating in Canoe Lake, and who believed the cause of death was "misadventure while canoeing." Very few people believe this today, and suspect it was Mowat hotelier, Shannon Fraser, who had fought Thomson, the night before he allegedly drowned, while traversing Canoe Lake. What is suspected, and part of it came from a death-bed confession of Fraser's daughter, was that the hotelier knocked the drunken Thomson off his feet, in a fight the night before, and upon falling backwards, hit his head on a fireplace andiron, or the equivalent. Fraser and his wife set-up Thomson's canoe, to appear as if he had rigged it for an overnight camping trip, and with a rowboat, took the unconscious artist out into the lake, and dropped him overboard. They had tied fishing line to his ankle, presumably with a weight attached, and set his canoe adrift, to make it look as if he had just fallen overboard, as a result of misadventure. Trapper Ralph Bice once wrote, in a local newspaper column, that Thomson had likely been urinating over the side of the canoe, when he simply toppled out, banging his head on the gunnel on the way into the water. This kind of story was refuted by Judge William Little, author of the famous "Tom Thomson Mystery," of the early 1970's. Judge Little had only recently passed away, when Bice wrote this editorial piece, suggesting there was no murder involved. Just drink and poor judgement in a canoe. I wrote a series of columns to refute this, with the help of Judge Little's son, John, for a publication known then as "Muskoka Today."
But it was the courage of Blodwen Davies, in the late 1920's, who upset status quo around Canoe Lake. There were those residents tired of the Thomson legacy, and innuendoes about how he ultimately met his demise. In fact, it is known that a few of those in attendance, during the July 1917 Coroner's Inquest, suspected Thomson had met with foul play, and they had their culprits in mind. When the Coroner asked for any additional information, or concerns about the cause of death, no one in that room said a word. If they truly believed Thomson hadn't drowned at all, how could they sit there and watch this debacle of injustice, to someone they had called a friend? Well, there is some argument about Thomson's friends, and just how many really cared about the man, and about his death. We know there were some, in that community, who didn't like Thomson, but felt differently toward Winnie Trainor, and her well respected local family; some believing he should not have had anything to do with the well-thought-of girl. There were those who felt he had a corrupting influence on her, and to this day, it is argued that she was with-child at the time of the tragic event, and that Thomson had needed money to carry-on with a marriage. This was one of the reasons given for battling Fraser over money owed. She suffered immeasurably from the loss, and spent considerable time in United States, shortly after, allegedly giving birth to Thomson's child. Did Shannon Fraser, on behalf of the Trainor family, take issue with Thomson that ill-fated night, with the warning going further than anticipated? Or did Thomson begin the fight with Fraser, to get back money he was owed, so that he could look after the pregnant Winnie Trainor? Who will ever know?
Blodwen Davies believed Thomson had been murdered. Even though the police and the provincial authority declined to conduct a full scale review of the case, it didn't change her mind, that something foul had occurred prior to Thomson hitting that beautiful, haunted Algonquin Lake. "The artist, who gave to the new Canadian faith its symbolism, was peculiarly a product of his own soil. In birth, up-bringing, training and achievement, he owed everything to his own land. Less than four years of his life were spent out of the boundaries of his native province," wrote his biographer. "When he painted he was earnest and painstaking. Sometimes he would put aside his canvases, make another trip into the north, and the following winter, work them over again from further knowledge. It is said that he worked best under the stimulus of resentment. Criticism drove him back to his paint box with determination to outstrip his previous efforts," noted Davies. "During 1915 and 1916 Thomson painted with increasing power and freedom. Theme after theme from Algonquin Park and the wilderness around it was laid down on glowing canvas. Once he had mastered this phase of the technique of painting, he leaped on with astonishing assurance toward new heights. Once he had grasped a principle it no longer troubled him. Even his methods were swift and apparently easy. His friends tell of many occasions on which they would work and struggle with a sketch while Thomson was apparently idling away his time. Then in a leisurely way, he would open his sketch box, set up his panel and begin painting. Presently they would find that Thomson had captured the thing for which they had been striving for hours. The picture seemed to grow and ripen in his imagination before he attempted to set it down in paint. Nor did Thomson need to travel far to seek for inspiration."
Blodwen Davies writes, "However, in the spring of 1917 Thomson again packed up his sketch box and dunnage bag and left the military (war years period) city of Toronto behind him, and headed for Algonquin Park. he made his headquarters for the summer at Mowat Lodge, Canoe Lake. There he painted all spring, setting himself the unique task of painting a record of the weather. For sixty days, from the middle of April till the middle of June, he painted a sketch every day, following every subtle change from the going out of the ice to the richness of midsummer foliage. At noon, of July 8th, he set out across Canoe Lake with his supplies for another jaunt into the wilderness. By three o'clock that afternoon his empty canoe was seen floating on the lake. It was several days later before his body was found. During that time his friends could not believe that Thomson was dead. They hoped and believed that he was lost in the woods."
"He was buried first of all near the spot where he was found, but shortly afterwards his body was removed to Leith where it lies in the graveyard of the little old Presbyterian church which he had attended as a boy. On Canoe Lake stands a cairn erected by his friends to the memory of the artist who 'lived humbly and passionately with the wild. It drew him apart and revealed itself wonderfully to him. It sent him out from the woods only to show these revelations through his art; and it took him to itself at last'."
While Davies, and later her friend, Dr. Frederick Banting (insulin), would continue to immerse themselves in the circumstances surrounding Thomson's death, she found a general unwillingness to progress the theory that the artist was murdered, and that a killer had gone unpunished. But in the conclusion to this small, staple-bound text, she summed it up, by noting, "Thomson did not perish that July day in 1917. Tom Thomson, the legend, is one of the most vital influences in the creative life of Canada. If his own particular field of work was not in Algonquin Park, it does not follow that his interpretation was only of Ontario. Thomson's frank approach to the problems of painting in Canada is quite as applicable, and has been used as freely, in the Rockies and the Prairies, as in Quebec and the Atlantic seaboard. While his subjects particularized, his methods had universal meaning. Thomson was the product of his time, the blossoming of the Canadian genius. The dramatic qualities of his career, the brief years of achievement after seven eighths of his life had been spent in search of a medium, have given us the only legend of Canadian art. When Tom Thomson flashed upon life of Canada, like a brilliant meteor, he was already a man, both very young and very old in spirit."
Davies concludes her profile of the artist, by writing, "Thomson is no longer a solitary figure in Canadian art. Even in the intense emotional quality of his work there are one or two who are his equal, and several more who have climbed to heights near him. But Thomson's essential greatness lay in the genius which carried him beyond the pace of men who in patient and tenacious devotion, were clearing the trails for others. Today no other Canadian painter is so well known to the school children of Canada. To them he is both man and artist. Thomson's pictures in many thousands of reproductions in Canadian homes and schools, are ikons of the new Canadian faith." (Blodwen Davies, 1930, "Paddle and Palette - The Story of Tom Thomson," Ryerson Press.
As a sidebar explanation, to the story above, I was in a local book store, here in Muskoka, one day this spring, and I was thinking to myself about writing some small tribute about Tom Thomson, for the July issue of The Great North Arrow, which would mark the 95th anniversary of his death, in July 1917. I always have a large supply of Thomson reference material in my home archives, considering I've worked on a half dozen full length feature series on his death, for numerous publications, since the mid 1990's. As I was considering my approach, I was also thinking of Blodwen Davies, because she was his first biographer, and she was also the writer who requested a re-opening of the case of the artist's death, suspecting it had been a case of foul play, not accidental drowning. Even Judge William Little, was inspired by the early work of this intrepid, investigative reporter. So with this on my mind, I wandered about the store, and shortly before my wife Suzanne paid for our few purchases, there it was at arm's length, at about nose level. "Paddle and Palette," the 1930 biography of Thomson by Miss Davies. I could not believe my good fortune. But folks, this has been happening to me from the moment I turned onto this story in the 1990's. It has led to a semi obsession with the story, and at times, I wonder if Thomson's spirit isn't pulling the strings from the great beyond, attempting to find his own sense of closure to his life story. As if he is beckoning from the other side, that someone should solve the cold case, once and for all. Someone got away with murder. While the Davies book isn't the only one she wrote on Thomson, of course, she bravely financed this copy, and it was the first real attempt in Canadian history, to profile a genuinely mysterious character on the art scene. Her name continues to be a primary source, for anyone researching the life, work and tragic demise of Canadian landscape artist. Tom Thomson.
In recognition of this 95th anniversary, I think the best tribute of all, is for those who know his work, and those who know of his legend, to look about the wilds of this beautiful region on earth, and be thankful of the nature we have conserved for future generations to enjoy and celebrate.
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