CHRISTMAS IN GRAVENHURST -

PAINTED LANDSCAPE - AN AMAZING HINTERLAND - BUT DO WE REALLY CARE ABOUT ITS WELFARE?

There was a memorable occasion, on Algonquin Park's Smoke Lake, most likely in the summer of 1916, that began when a park ranger stopped to check out a trace of smoke rising from a point of land. When he climbed up the shoreline, and to the elevation where the smoke was visible, he came upon something and someone he hadn't anticipated. Working on a paint board was an artist. The ranger walked up quietly, so as not to startle the painter, appearing to be deeply immersed in his work. The park official couldn't take his eyes of the art. "Hello there," asked the artist, of the gentleman behind him. "Hello" he responded, as he walked closer, being a little surprised his presence had been detected. Possibly the painter had heard the canoe being paddled toward shore, or maybe it had been a snap of a branch on the way up the embankment. "Say, that painting looks just like what you see out there," remarked the ranger, now standing close behind. He'd forgotten about the smoke, and was more interested in the art panel in progress. The artist was so delighted by the appreciative comments, that he asked the chap to stay for a piece of campfire blueberry pie…..baking in the handcrafted reflector oven. Not only was it said to be the best pie the ranger had ever tasted, it was also one of the nicest gifts he'd received as a park employee. The painter, on the ranger's departure, finished a few more brush strokes, and handed him the birch panel the landscape was painted on…….as a gift.

If that Algonquin Park Ranger, had kept that same art panel in the family, for all these years, well, imagine what it would be worth today. The painting, and the blueberry pie, were made by legendary Canadian landscape artist Tom Thomson, shortly before his death by misadventure, on Canoe Lake, in July 1917.

When I see the work of Group of Seven artists, (hung in some exclusive gallery), who frequently painted in Muskoka, as well as Algonquin, I am always proud at that moment, wishing to turn and tell someone……."Look, this is a painting of my home district….isn't it beautiful." That's typically when people move away from me. I guess I'm the "nutter" in the gallery. But these are proud moments, and I don't care how boastful I might sound, or beaming my expression of sheer joy, at finding this validation of what I've known of Muskoka since the summer of 1965……my first visit to this region, staying at a small cottage on Bruce Lake. As I was enthralled then, you can probably imagine that my head nearly exploded six months later, when my father told me we were moving to Bracebridge in January. He had found work at a local lumber company. I was going to be living in one of Canada's premiere vacation spots…..permanently. While I won't ever regret my association with Burlington, Ontario, of which I will always cherish, I was born a nature-freak, and having a Muskoka address was the best Christmas present I could have ever dreamed up. Not quite an original Tom Thomson but just as enduring. I got the whole landscape, not just an art depiction.

From that first association with our district, and certainly from the point I appreciated the importance of its conservation as a hinterland, I have been studying the way artists have and continue to depict it, and how writers and musicians benefit from their association with rural life and times. The arts colony still doesn't draw too much attention from local government, and I don't know why, but it has for long and long, fascinated me while working on my own research, for feature columns, prepared for several publications in Ontario. Their inspired work, remains a key attraction to many of our guests……the second home owners, cottagers, all who can't wait to escape here, from the hectic urban environs. Yet I can't remember the last time, when local councils thought it prudent, to meet with members of the arts community generally, to seek their opinion about the home region, its health, and strategies we should be employing to maintain this longstanding attraction. If there wasn't a commercial establishment in the entire district, there would be thousands upon thousands of visitors each year regardless…..because these are still, as they were in the 1800's, "the healing woods." The artists and writers…..they'd be first in the convoy north from the Big Smoke.

This may surprise some readers, who aren't particularly interested in spiritual this or that……or how it became of interest to many well known writers, especially poets. I had a number of discussions with an expert, in this matter, who had documented the early writers' colonies, and their assemblies on Lake Rosseau, and she put great emphasis on this spiritual context of the lakeland…..and how writers and artists sensed this…..and benefitted from the subtle influences. She asked me if I felt the same, as a writer, and if I could relate to what poets such as Bliss Carmen and Sir Charles G.D. Roberts felt about the haunted Muskoka Lakes. She was the first person to suggest this, and for me, it had been a sensory perception from my first days in this district……but I couldn't put it into words as eloquently. For years before our conversation, I had been wandering through the woodlands, notepad in tow, looking for inspiring places around the lakes, in which to work. I never arrived home again, without copious notes…..and the commitment to continue my excursions.

There was a humorous occasion, when my girlfriend, at the time, and I planned a nature walk up a huge round-top elevation, near the Muskoka River, and what she planned as an exercise in romance, didn't quite occur as she might have hoped. Being young of body and heart, we scaled that hillside like a couple of mountain goats, jumping from rock to rock, pulling ourselves up the steeper inclines by grabbing small trees and exposed roots. It was quite warm out, so we were pretty hot by time we hit the pinnacle of that beautiful bald rock. We sat for awhile, enjoyed a beverage we had backpacked up the hill, and she spread out a little picnic lunch on a platform rock, that made a perfect table-top. After an enjoyable respite, and good food, I sat close to the edge of the hillside, looking out over the river and Lake Muskoka. It was a most impressive view. If only I could have painted this landscape, with the artistic competence of Tom Thomson or A.Y. Jackson. Alas, I was but a painter with words only. I began making some preliminary notes, and took a few photographs of the vista in the early afternoon light of late spring.

My girlfriend tried to cozy up and a few times I felt a peck on the cheek. She wrapped her arm around me a couple of times, and tried to converse. I was spellbound by what lay beyond….in that painted, windswept valley. I continued writing. I think I may have missed some subtle, well, maybe less-than-subtle hints, my partner was looking for more attention than I was freely providing. I may have actually shifted over on the rock ledge, to give her more room, when what she wanted was less space between us. I picked up signals in baseball, but I've always been a bit of a dullard when it comes to the dances of the opposite sex. At that precise moment, I might have been showered with affection, but it wouldn't have mattered. I was a slave to the mistress in front of me……..which certainly wasn't very sensible as a boyfriend, in the mortal reality of the situation. My wife has always thought of my writing adventures as an affair of the mind, and I suppose she knows all about the competition for my attention. I am truly sorry. I was on that day, similarly disposed, as well; a tad shocked when I found my girlfriend, Gail, had left me sitting there in the late afternoon sunglow, and had actually begun riding her bike home in disgust. I was a cad. Insensitive. Unfeeling. In love with Muskoka. Of that, I would never, even today, offer an apology. You may notice this relationship….this affair, in my writing thus far. I certainly don't try to hide it, and Suzanne, at the very least, doesn't have to look for lipstick on my cheek, or another woman's hair on my collar. I'm more likely to return home with burrs stuck on my sweater, or cuts and scrapes from minor misadventures, than the scent of a woman.

I love the opportunity to paddle the lakes and rivers, with a partner who feels the same as I do, about this wondrous lakeland. I want to sit by a shore campfire, and look upon the waterscape as Tom Thomson studied the wilds for his next art panel. I desire to sit there and think poetic, and watch the fire-glow spark on the ripples of the inlet, and embrace one another, as the waves lap the rocks, and the Northern Lights waver in the night sky. I wish to feel the heart beat of this partner nature, and be renewed by morning light……to take up this pen, and notepad, to write again about passions of the heart. Hand in hand, we stand at the shore, and watch our eternity rise as the sun, with joy and expectation. This mortal pleasure, the ecstasy on earth, is simple discovery, heaven is a peace of mind.

I never thanked my parents, before they passed on, for having the courage way back then, to move our family to a better place on earth. They must certainly have sensed it with their son, as before and after, that they'd made a difference in my life. Instead of playing in a power line, or in a polluted creek, I was deep in the woodlands…….commencing an affair of the heart, that honestly, will last forever.

Many folks today have become complacent in paradise. They have truly forgotten how beautiful it is, in our region, and how restorative it can be……when employed as a healing place. It can be a soft landing in a hard life.

Please pay attention to this beautiful lakeland, before it is destroyed by the city-builders, getting closer to us every year.