Ada Florence Kinton

The Artist’s Ontario sketches of 1883

By Ted Currie

“Wrote to Amy (in England). Wonder what is to become of me or what I am going to do in the future. Amy suggests Paris, to paint in the Louvre. Possibly it might be Toronto. Probably London. Hope so! Want to be up and doing.!” But it was the Village of Huntsville that became the most influential stop for the young artist. The place she wanted to spend the final moments of her storied life.

One hundred and twenty-eight years ago. This was the spring Ada Florence Kinton began her sketching trips, deep into the woodlands surrounding the pioneer village of Huntsville, in the northern climes of the District of Muskoka. Knowing the logging interests would soon pulverize the hauntingly beautiful forests, she wanted to capture the tranquil, life-full scenes before they were lost forever. She could see the destruction of the clear-cut already banding around the small settlement. The clack of the axe and thud of the felled giants resonated through many parts of Ontario at this time in history.

The young artist, recently transplanted from England, after the death of her father, was unsure what she would do with her life. Ada had been a well respected art instructor, at English schools, but she held some fascination with the work of the Salvation Army. In the year 1883 she spent time with her brothers, Mackie and Ed, both businessmen in the small Muskoka community.

Earlier this morning, I happened to be in Huntsville, on business, and stopped by for a few moments, to see the modest cemetery plot where Ada rests. After many years of dedication to Salvation Army mission work, and an accomplished period of her life as an artist and journalist, for “The War Cry,” she came home to Huntsville, still a young woman, and passed away watching out from the front porch, over the same bustling little town she had sketched almost 20 years earlier. Despite her illness and the pain she endured, Ada found solace and comfort here, just as she had experienced in the spring of 1883. Sketching the colorful, vibrant, enchanted woodlands.

The sunlight brings a cheerfulness to this solemn place, and I think she would have very much enjoyed the early buds of a robust May, and the evidence of soon-to-bloom lilacs. Ada Kinton discovered beauty in places, most of her contemporaries in art, found uninteresting, without any striking contrast of natural colors. She found inspiration watching the smallest life forms, crinkling the dry leaves along a forest path, or in the way a bird found a small puddle the perfect place to bathe. Most of all, she enjoyed watching the people, going about their business and recreation, taking an interest in their village interactions, the fetes, and social recognition of special occasions.

In 1883, Ada Kinton spent four months residing at her brother’s home. After a period of adjustment to rural life, simplified from her days spent in West London, England, she began to explore this area of north Muskoka. An artist of considerable competence and acclaim, she soon found inspiration in the picturesque qualities of the lakeland, increasing her appetite to paint more frequently. Following her father’s sudden death, and the move to Canada, she had found little reason to sketch or paint. The written descriptions of Muskoka, in this pioneer period, afford historians a glimpse of what the forests were like before the cut of the woodsman’s axe. She invites the journal-reader to join the hike along the thin, only partially visible paths, through some of the heaviest forest in the region.

In the text of the book, “Just One Blue Bonnet,” circa 1907, the artist offers these interesting observations. The entries, for the purpose of this column, begin on February 20th, 1883.

“Commenced to stump (stumping is a kind of drawing) Mr. Hooie’s premises. Hope I shall finish it. Snowing slightly all day. All the landscape is pure and clean.’ February 28th. “Up before seven. Early morning very nice. Snow sparkling like crushed diamonds for acre upon acre. Walked across two next fields, on top crust of the snow, to fetch some beech from the underbrush; but after going through the surface and floundering around for awhile, in an ungraceful fashion, thought it best to return. March 2. “Bit of dry earth in sight under the window. Troop of Canadian sparrows attracted by the sight. Not much like English sparrows - smaller, rounder, prettier, plump, black and white and brown in a sort of check pattern, with a spot of deep crimson on the head just above the beak. Male birds have pink breasts. Walk along Fairy Lake locks, past Beaver Meadow. Brush scenery entrancingly lovely. Forest primeval, giant trees, bearded with moss and in garments green. Now hoary, frosty bark, lichen covered, red willow, cerulean, and azure, sapphire sky.”

March 7th. “Fresh March wind, north-west. Newly fallen powdering of snow, swirling and coiling and eddying over the old snow, round and round, or resting in billowy drifts. Double play of surface lights, and constant movement. March 9th. Mrs Kinton and I took a walk into the bush along the North Road. Impossible to walk upright and steadily. Great quantity of spruce, cedar, balsam and hemlock - pine rarer - tamarack all clear green. Perky, strictly symmetrical little Christmas trees along the way - fallen trunks, branches covered soft and thick with moss, fungus, lichens on the underneath sides, on the top snow in solid circular or oblong blocks. Might be of marble, the purest marble delicately chiselled and carved - called ‘night caps’ when on stumps. Snags and half fallen trees grotesque and fantastic, gnarled and jagged trunk and boughs - limbs hanging creaking and broken by the wind, or lopped down by the wood cutter and lying on the snow in pathetic, helpless attitudes; tiny twigs and yellow and golden brown chips scattered all around.

“Red willow, smooth twigs, recent year’s growth, crimson red, brown, in the agreeable, dainty, tender, light brown beech, almost like a fairy tree beside the dusky, solemn, silent, towering evergreens, murmuring, creaking, and the summer leaves of the birch dried up and curled, fluttering and graceful, thin as poppy leaves, crisp and with crinkled edges, satiny light on the surfaces. Wonder one does not read of it. Met several sleighs drawn by oxen, with broad backs and self-satisfied air, rough, long-haired and tawny hide, and big rolling eyes. Sleighs, mere boards on runners, close above the snow.”

At times, reading through this journal, I will swear to hearing the wind wheezing through the evergreens, see so clearly the intricacies of the nature she studied, feel the warm breeze of May against my face. Hear the scratch of pencil against paper, as actuality of the scene, becomes a reality of art. Squirrels leap from branch to branch, and the chickadees chatter in the scruffy branches of a nameless bush. The leaves crunching beneath her feet, as she wanders along the path toward home again, looking back for one last memorable glance, on a most beautiful, inspiring place.

The series of 12 columns, on the life and art of Ada Florence Kinton, is dedicated to the Salvation Army Food Bank, in Gravenhurst, Ontario, a service to help the less fortunate, the artist would have surely approved. Please consider making a contribution to a food bank serving your community.