Tom Thomson Became a Legend Sooner, Barge Review Delayed

The  Barge kept us late....and we are happy about it. 
We have run out of time this evening to write a proper review and profile of the Concert on The Barge, which we have just now returned. 


It will appear tomorrow evening instead.


The article below will be published in The Great North Arrow in August.
I thought I'd give my readers, who can't get a hold of copy, a preview of the final anniversary column regarding the death of Tom Thomson 95 Years ago.
















NINETY FIVE YEARS AGO, TOM THOMSON BECAME A LEGEND

By Ted Currie

    "From year to year Thomson grew ability to summarize, in the beauty of his colour arrangements, in confidence, and brilliancy of technique. His paintings are frank and beautiful statements of the moods and inner meanings of the scenes freed of all extraneous and distracting detail. His sense of design and colour wove enchantment into a sketch, never cluttering or confusing it, but rather adding a richer and more subtle significance. Thomson left probably more than four hundred sketches, perhaps twenty important canvases, with as many slighter or experimental pictures."
    The above passage was written by art colleague Albert H.Robson, in his small biography, titled simply, "Tom Thomson." He concludes the biography by suggesting, "His tragic and untimely death on Canoe Lake robbed our Dominion of a great interpreter of the Canadian wilderness; a faithful student whose sincerity, unresting passion for the true and swift insight into the heart of all that was beautiful, gave him skill and power to isolate the essentials, which lifted his landscapes from the purely representative to the realms of personal creative art."
    Ninety-five years ago, Canadian Arist, Tom Thomson, would be buried in the family plot in Leith, Ontario, a village near the Town of Owen Sound. It would be, in fact, the second time the painter was buried that month, of July, 1917.
    The first burial was in the tiny Mowat Cemetery, on the shore of Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake. As traditional funerals go, this one wasn't typical. It was conducted quickly, shortly after Thomson's body was found floating in Canoe Lake. There was no way the Thomson family could have attended, even if they had wanted to, and despite the suggestion it was the condition of the body that warranted speedy burial, it is noted that the body was embalmed on shore, by undertakers, Dixon and Flavell, a short time after a basic autopsy by Dr. G.W. Howland. Although the body was seriously decomposed, after a week in the water, it was hardly the argument, the body had to be buried immediately out of respect for Thomson, or for anyone else in that community at the time.
    The argument that authorities agreed to bury Thomson hurriedly, because of the advanced stage of decomposition, is flimsy at best. The undertakers should have known, that even to embalm the body before a coroner's investigation, was improper and could have lead to legal complications for the participants. When Coroner, Dr. Ranney, showed up, having taken the train from North Bay, Thomson had only just been buried......on July 17th, only one day after being snagged by a fishing hook in Canoe Lake.  Dr. Ranney had the authority to ask that Thomson's body be exhumed. He had the right to challenge the park authority, Superintendent Bartlett, and by Provincial jurisdiction, ask that the body be exhumed. There are many excuses bandied about, such as the war time situation, and shortage of doctors (coroners), but frankly, nothing should have got in the way of the coroner in this case, having full access to the body minus the embalming.
    The problem of course, was that there were linking of situations, that still confound investigation to this day. There are times when Thomson historians, and hobby investigators, are harshly criticized for trying to sort out the evidence from that July, ninety-five years ago, as if they are purposely trying to destroy the artist's good name. Unfortunately, a significant amount of bungling, and indifference to protocol, compounded what should have been a routine investigation. When Ranney did get a chance to conduct a Coroner's Inquest, he did so in the cabin of one of the prime suspects, Martin Blecher Jr., who had argued with Thomson, at an evening social event, the night before he went missing. There were witnesses who reported hearing Blecher threaten Thomson with unspecified harm, yet at the Coroner's Inquest, this was never mentioned. It was discussed following the Inquest but not during. This one occurrence alone, which should have been mentioned, would have caused the Coroner to ask that Thomson's body be removed from the Mowat gravesite.
    Was there some hesitation to bring this up, considering the inquest was being held in the Blecher family cottage? Although Blecher became an unlikely suspect in Thomson's demise, as time went on, the question lingers ninety-five years later, about the debacle of this legal event, that ultimately led to Dr. Ranney, agreeing with Dr. Howland's findings, and his hastily arranged, shoreline autopsy, that supported the theory of accidental drowning.....which with the Coroner's signature, made eventual "national history," he wouldn't have suspected at the time. Thomson's legend had been seeded, and not just because of the success of his art work. In reality, the mistakes and miscalculations, of which there were many, perpetuated the Tom Thomson mystery. While some purists, of his art career and paintings, view the "mystery" as a distraction from what is most important about his life and times, the tangle of mistruths and errors, that could only fuel suspicion, and thus intrigue about foul play, began in earnest, when those in attendance at the inquest, decided for whatever reason, to remain silent and accept the finding of accidental drowning.
    Then in the 1950's, Judge William Little, with associates, and some gardening spades, decided to exhume the supposedly empty grave in the Mowat Cemetery. It was supposed to be vacant. So there shouldn't have been a body in Thomson's first grave. But Little knew something different, and was proving a point. What he didn't realize, at the time, was that the Province wasn't interested in re-opening the Thomson file, even with bones found in a supposedly empty grave. He might have known this, from Thomson biographer, Blodwen Davies, who was the first to publicly question the accidental drowning theory, in the late 1920's, while interviewing Canoe Lake residents about the artist. She went as far as to contact the Ontario Provincial Police, to suggest Thomson had been murdered. She must have had good reason to suspect information on the case had been suppressed, but that there were still folks who wished to bring the suspect to justice. This never happened. The police gave it a cursory examination, and decided an investigation wasn't warranted. It was warranted. Davies, a well versed researcher and writer knew so, as did the folks she talked with in the Canoe Lake community, more than a decade after Thomson's death. Years later, she was still working on the murder-theory, with help from Dr. Frederick Banting, (insulin) a painter friend, who also subscribed to the theory of foul play. It was no different for Judge Little. He was stonewalled from his attempt to prove Thomson had never been moved from the plot in the Mowat graveyard, and that he had been murdered by someone in that Canoe Lake community.
    It was Little's discovery of bones, in a supposedly unoccupied grave, that is now, the pivotal situation in the Thomson mystery. The fact that he found human remains in that plot, should have by itself, initiated a fraud investigation. The Thomson family had paid an undertaker, by the name of Churchill, to remove Thomson....all of him, to the Village of Leith, Ontario, to be re-buried in the family plot. The fact there was still a corpse in Mowat meant that someone wasn't telling the truth. The fact the forensic examination revealed the bones, found by Little, had belonged to an aboriginal person, may have been corrupted itself, by the fact the government of the day, had no will to re-visit the Thomson case. Why? In the 1950's, Thomson's art work was becoming ever more popular. When Judge Little, in the early 1970's, wrote the book, "The Tom Thomson Mytsery," based in large part on the bones found in the Algonquin cemetery, the CBC film, documenting the story from the author's perspective, the legend, whether the Province or the Thomson family were upset or not, was most definitely heightened. Yet no one was willing to settle the fundamental argument. One grave had to be empty. It suggested to some historians, there was nothing in the Leith plot except a now-rusted, empty metal coffin, delivered by Mr. Churchill ninety-five years ago. There was reason to open the graves in the 1920's when Blodwen Davies raised the issue of foul play, and there was ample evidence provided, in the 1950's and 1970's, by Judge Little, to label this event a cold case, if only because of this strange reality of "two graves and one body."
   The Tom Thomson Mystery is forever linked with bungling by the Province of Ontario. Authorities in government and the Ontario Provincial Police should have been willing to find out why there was an unknown body buried in the Mowat Cemetery, in the same style and period of coffin, as Thomson was buried, and supposedly moved with, to the Village of Leith. Even down to the name plate on the coffin that had never been inscribed, due to the quick burial. They should have, at the very least, asked that an investigation be made, of his second burial site, to make sure that the deceased artist was in the family plot, as Undertaker Churchill had promised. Even the nagging suspicion that Thomson was murdered, gets lost in the quagmire of this unfortunate burial issue, which most certainly compounds the mysterious circumstances, and keeps the legend pumping along. But don't blame researchers and historians. They have been fulfilling their mandate, to investigate history and biography. It is a compelling story. It will continue to provide the allure to authors long into the future, unless, some day, a forensic test can be done on remains in the Leith plot......if indeed there are any old bones buried there to test. This is the haunting issue.
    I am a lover of all things Tom Thomson. I am an admirer of his art, and I have dozens of books regarding his life and career, and I'm always eager to learn more. The mystery of his death has never conflicted with my own appreciation of his painting, and without question, the vibrancy and spirit within his art panels, inspired me to visit Algonquin Park, and remain attached to its nature and traditions for all these wonderful decades. I will never watch the Northern Lights waver in the autumn sky, or see a crooked pine silhouetted against a rising stormfront, and not think of Tom Thomson, and how he might have painted life into such a scene.
    We owe a lot to this Canadian artist. And I believe we need to know exactly where he was buried. Or the Province, should, at the very least, as a result of their bungling of the case, erect a small memorial to Tom Thomson, on the site of that first burial, in the Mowat Cemetery. For the many Thomson admirers, who make a point of hiking back there, during their Algonquin trips, yes indeed, there should be a marker on the plot. Whether it is still Thomson resting in that grave, or someone else, it was where the artist's remains were first buried.....and this needs to be acknowledged. By the visitors each year.....it is validated as relevant, and respected, as a Thomson landmark.....a place to visit while in Algonquin Park, and in the Canoe Lake community.
    Was Tom Thomson murdered? The question will survive for another ninety-five years, I'm sure!
    "Except to a very limited number of friends, Tom Thomson is a remote and mystical figure that broke into the art firmament with a sudden and dazzling brilliancy, and then disappeared as suddenly into the great unknown," wrote Albert Robson, of his friend. "Thomson's truly amazing accomplishment is explainable mainly through the intensely passionate love he had for the lakes, woods, and rolling granite-ribbed hills of the country he interpreted so sensitively and beautifully."