Tom Thomson and A Gibson Girl

TOM THOMSON AND A COLLECTION WORTH BUILDING

YOU DON'T HAVE TO OWN AN ORIGINAL SKETCH TO CELEBRATE HIS ART

IT FOUND MY EYE. OR MAYBE MY EYE FOUND IT. THERE IT WAS, WITHIN ARM'S REACH. A BOOK I SUSPECTED WOULD SOMEHOW CONTAIN INFORMATION ON CANADIAN LANDSCAPE ARTIST, TOM THOMSON. MY WIFE SUZANNE, AND I, HAD BEEN ROAMING AROUND THE LOCAL SECOND HAND SHOP FOR ABOUT A HALF HOUR, AND I WAS JUST WRAPPING UP MY BROWSING, WHEN AS A GIFT FOR THE PATIENT AMONGST US, I SAW THE DATE ON THE BOOK'S SPINE. THE YEAR WAS 1913. THE TITLE OF THE VINTAGE BOOK WAS "THE YEAR BOOK OF CANADIAN ART 1913." I JUMPED ON THAT BOOK LIKE IT WAS A LOOSE FOOTBALL ON THE ONE YARD LINE. THERE IT WAS. JUST LIKE THAT! ONE CRITICALLY IMPORTANT LINE IN THE BOOK, WAS WORTH FIFTY DOLLARS TO ME….JUST TO SAY I OWNED IT! AND KEEP IN MIND THAT I'M OBSESSIVELY FRUGAL WHEN IT COMES TO BUYING BOOKS. WHICH OF COURSE, WILL ULTIMATELY SIT ON MY OFFICE SHELF COLLECTING DUST. ANY BOOK I PURCHASE NOW HAS GOT TO FIT INTO THE BIG PICTURE. IT'S GOT TO BE A DIMENSIONAL INVESTMENT. A WRITING RESOURCE, AND ONE THAT HAS A SUBSTANTIAL VALUE ATTACHED. SO HERE'S THE ONE LINE, IN ONE BOOK, CANADIAN ART RESEARCHERS WOULD WANT IN THEIR ARCHIVES. BUT I GOT TO IT FIRST.

"Tom Thomson's 'Northern Lake,' is remarkable for its fidelity to the northern shore; boulders and undergrowth in the foreground, the brown water turned to the deep blue of the sky under the fresh gale that is putting white caps on the little lake."

From the book, reviewed in yesterday's blog, by artist Albert Robinson, (on Tom Thomson) you will remember the passage he wrote about "Northern Lake." After returning to Toronto from a lengthy stay in Ontario's Algonquin Park, Thomson arrived back in Toronto with a packet of newly completed sketches, which he let Robinson and his other painter friends look at, to see if there was anything salvageable. Just a few, including one sketch they found exceptionally well composed. "We urged him to paint one of his sketches upon a large canvas, and gave him the keys and use of the studio on weekends. So a 'Northern Lake,' came into being in 1913, his first attempt on a large canvas. It attracted the admiration of his fellow artists, and to his astonishment was purchased by the Government of Ontario."

It was only one line, but it was the first serious published review, of one of Canada's soon-to-be legendary landscape artists…..the man who led the way to the creation of the Group of Seven Artists. Unfortunately, he died before his own inclusion in the movement he help inspire.

The book also contains a large amount of Canadian art history from this period, including a chapter on Quebec painter, sculptor A. Suzor-Cote, by C. Lintern Sibley, another on The National Gallery of Canada, by Eric Browne, who became one of its critically innovative directors. It was Browne who was most influential opening up the gallery to works by Thomson and the Group of Seven. I also own a copy of the book Browne's wife wrote, following her husband's death, and it contains important information about Tom Thomson. The 1913 Year Book also contains chapters on the Montreal Art Club, The Ontario College of Art, The Toronto Museum of Art, The Ontario Society of Artists, The Toronto Exhibition of Little Pictures, written by well known artist C.W. Jefferys, who was then President of the Ontario Society of Artists; a chapter on The Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Royal Academy of Art, the Canadian Art Club, written by future Group of Seven member, Lawren Harris. Other relevant chapters to the study of Canadian art, includes French Canadian Painting and Sculpture, Montreal Art Association, Spring Exhibition, a chapter on Graphic Art by another future Group of Seven Artist, Arthur Lismer, and one entitled "Canadian Art: A Resume," by E. Wyly Greer, a past president of the Ontario Society of Artists.

So what was going on in Canadian art in the year 1913, other than Tom Thomson's joy at selling his first major painting? Here's a little of what E. Wyly Greer thought was important to note:

"The position of the painter in Canada, in relation to his contemporaries is very much the same as that occupied by the artist in England. In a land where the inhabitants pride themselves on their industrial achievements, the possession of the subtler senses is not wholly joyous, and the possessor is often looked upon with suspicion. As the fatigue produced by the tremendous and constant pressure of water is to the swimmer, so is the deadly, suffocating effect of the weight surrounding utilities on the artist, in a country of commerce. In England the dreamer of the family goes into the church, or accepts a mild tutorship. Sometimes he paints or writes poetry. Then his troubles begin. Either of these occupations is highly revolutionary in a British community. The artist is conscious of himself. He is probably defiant in his utterances in verse or in paint. If he is any good he can't paint acceptable Academy pictures, and can't write popular or salable verse. Only one here and there, whose talent is the superstructure of a very strong character, who is the more determined as he is the more rebuffed, ultimately succeeds.

"On this continent the artist is even more singular than in Britain. We have no leisured class; no idle sons to potter with dilettante pursuits, and who, almost unconsciously, drift into art. In Canada, the artistic youngster, realizing that he must make a living, apprentices himself to a firm of lithographers or designers, learns his 'high' art in the evenings at an art class or school, and gradually emerges into the glare of the public exhibitions and achieves fame. This fame is local in it early stages and is more easily attained than in England, where the competitors are more numerous, and where distinct recognition at the great exhibitions of Europe, is the criterion of merit. In Canada, too, those picture collectors who are not guided by the dealers are quick to recognize budding genius."

One of the most profound statements, made by Greer, reads as follows: "We who paint know something of the under-workings of this thing - the bubbling and churning which scarcely yet ripple the surface. The connoisseur is faintly cognizant; only the dealer is unaware. I am reluctant to introduce into the peaceful circle of the sister arts that perennial bone of contention, the subject of national art. But I believe that our art will never hold a commanding position, to use a soldier's phrase, until we are stirred by big emotions born of our landscape; braced to big, courageous efforts by our climate; and held to patient persistent endeavor by that great pioneer spirit which animated the explorers and soldiers of early Canada. The thing needs courage. All original art depends for its adequate utterance and ultimate victory upon the possession of this quality. The painter, beleaguered by the hosts of Philistia, is solitary, and must be a giant - first, to hold his fortress, and then to conquer the surrounding territory. There is something of the romantic interest of knight-errantry in our undertaking."

This was a highly visionary statement made by E. Wyly Greer. Prophetic in fact. Here was Thomson's bold and beautiful "Northern Lake," stirring the critics pen, and heralding a period that would see the creation of one of Canada's most profound shifts in art. And it was to be a rough road ahead. But here it is……a challenge to artists and the art community to be courageous….to take chances, and to "conquer the surrounding territory." It is even more profound, when you consider how the new work launched by the Group of Seven, left many art critics speechless…..and those who could speak, leveled considerable criticism. Much wound up in print, including rebukes form the likes of Hector Charlesworth, who had running editorial battles with Group members like A.Y. Jackson, as to what was acceptable and accomplished art. Charlesworth didn't appreciate the Group's apparent interest, in setting the new standard of contemporary art in Canada.

So here was this early call to arms, for Canadian artists, to challenge status quo. I made a good find. My newly acquired book was given a place of honor in my Thomson archives.

When I'm working on research projects, and collecting at the same time, to build a small library of pertinent books, I look for texts like this Canadian Art Year Book, because it inevitably contains important tidbits of information hard to find anywhere else. Some of it is contained in other related overviews, and summary histories, but I like the raw resource that actually puts me safely in the year I'm studying. There will be collateral information to draw on, to paint an accurate picture of what was going on in Canada, as far as the art community, in that specific year. I would like more of these. Here's why, in a nutshell. When someone produces a book on Thomson, for example, they choose to include research material, that supports their thesis, their editorial perspective, and they also make selections about information to be excluded. I hate that! I want the information they're deciding is irrelevant, because most of the time, what they're editing out, is information I find critical to the story. It happens all the time. Publishers want tight, to the point, cost efficient text by budget conscious authors. I'm nothing of the sort. What they cut out of a story, I would like to scoop up for my own archives. They don't offer it to me, and I suppose it just gets shelved in the Thomson file, and nothing more comes of it….unless there is a second revised printing. Chances are, the stuff I want will get cut again. The only way to beat this trend, is to own the reference material myself, so my dependance on subject authors, to present it in their books, becomes less of an issue. I've got lots of material on Thomson that I've never seen published anywhere else. I'm also guarded about it, as I'm sure you understand. I'm saving up for the hundred year anniversary of his death, in July 2017, when I hope to run my next feature series on Thomson's life and death, in one of the regional publications I'm currently connected.

I never know when this material is likely to surface. At a garage sale? In a job-lot of books at an estate auction? Thrift shop, second hand store, antique mall, or antique shop? But I never stop looking. I'm rewarded for my patience. If anything I can pass along, as a career collector, and historian, check every book, every box, every mysterious nook and cranny, and never say never. My finds are profitable.

One day, I would love to present to you, via this blog, a pic of an original Tom Thomson sketch, that I've found somewhere out on the local antique hunt. But you know what, in the meantime, I'll show you what may be an original Thomson sketch, on the back of a banjo skin, from a tenor banjo we purchased at an antique mall five years ago. See graphic above. Thomson once owned and played a tenor banjo but its whereabouts are unknown. This reference to the tenor banjo, and the fact it was missing, was included in the book, "Tom Thomson: Silence and the Storm," by David Silcox and Harold Town. Experts who have looked at the pen drawing of the "Gibson Girl," a well known graphic from earlier in the century, say it is in the artist's style…..but because it isn't signed…..well, you know the rest. The banjo belongs to my son Andrew. Was it once played by a legendary painter? We'll never know. But it's fun to speculate.

As far as collecting Thomson, or Group of Seven keepsakes, from books, commemorative stamps to prints, you will likely never run out of neat pieces to add to your walls, cabinets, display cases, or book shelves. Take a trip down to the McMichael Collection, in Kleinburg one day, and enjoy an amazing gallery tour of Canadian art, and a wonderfully stocked shop. You can also take a gander at the famous "Shack" Tom Thomson used to paint in, while working in Toronto, before he was given an opportunity to paint from the large Studio Building owned, I believe, by Lawren Harris

Thanks so much for joining today's blog. Please visit me again.

Tom Thomson and The Books About Him

IN QUEST OF TOM THOMSON - THE CONCLUSION, AS WRITTEN BY ARTIST ALBERT H. ROBINSON, CIRCA 1937

A BOOK ON THOMSON I JUST COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT -

WHAT AN AMAZINGLY BRIGHT AND CHEERFUL LATE WINTER DAY, HERE IN SOUTH MUSKOKA. I HAVE JUST TAKEN A LITTLE JAUNT THROUGH THE WOODLANDS ABOVE THE BOG, AND THE SUNLIGHT IS DAZZLING ON THE NEW SNOW, SCULPTED AROUND THE TRUNKS OF HARDWOODS AND VENERABLE OLD PINES, FROM THE WEEKEND'S STORM. THE PATH IS ICE-COVERED ALREADY, THE SLIDING WORK OF MANY FEET OVER THE PAST SEVERAL DAYS. IT IS LIKE WALKING INTO A TOM THOMSON PAINTING, WITHOUT CAUSING ANY DAMAGE. THE PLAY OF LIGHT AND SHADOW OF HARDWOOD AND EVERGREEN, IS SPECTACULAR, AND FROM SO MANY VANTAGE POINTS, I CAN FRAME A HALF DOZEN PAINTINGS I'D LOVE TO OWN…..DEPICTING THE PLACE I LOVE TO ESCAPE. I HAVE BEEN WRITING ALL MORNING, TRYING TO GET A START ON THE BIOGRAPHY OF MUSKOKA ARTIST, RICHARD KARON, AND CAN ADMIT HAPPILY, I HAVE GOTTEN PAST THAT FIRST HURDLE MOST WRITERS DREAD……"CHAPTER ONE." IT WILL TAKE A FEW WEEKS YET TO COMPOSE THE "ON-LINE" BIOGRAPHY, I INTEND TO PRESENT ON THIS BLOG-SITE, LATER IN MARCH. ADMITTEDLY I WAS THINKING ABOUT MR. KARON, WHILE WALKING THROUGH THESE SUNLIT WOODS, WONDERING HOW HE MIGHT HAVE PAINTED THIS GRANDLY ILLUMINATED SCENE. I WAS ALSO THINKING ABOUT TOM THOMSON, THE NEXT PROJECT FOR ME, AFTER RETURNING HOME TO BIRCH HOLLOW. IT IS THE CONTINUATION OF THE REVIEW OF MY NEWLY ACQUIRED, ALBERT ROBINSON BOOK, (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1937), WHICH IS A BRIEF BUT HIGHLY REGARDED THOMSON BIOGRAPHY…..A BOOK I NEEDED MANY YEARS AGO, BUT EITHER COULDN'T AFFORD, WHEN I DID FIND A COPY, OR ONE THAT WAS MISSING PAGES OR EVEN THE FULL COLOR IMAGES IN THE BACK. I FOUND A FINE CONDITION COPY THAT HAS ALL OF ITS PAGES, AND A NICE CLEAN GREEN CLOTH WRAPPING ON PERFECT BOARDS (COVER STOCK). NOT ONE DOG EARRED PAGE IN THE BOOK. AS AN ENTHUSIASTIC THOMSON RESEARCHER, AND COLLECTOR OF RELATED MOMENTOS (CAN'T AFFORD HIS ORIGINAL ART), IT WAS THE FIND OF 2012. IT'S LOOKING LIKE A GOOD YEAR OUT ON THE ANTIQUE HUSTINGS.

WHILE THE PICTURES HE PRODUCED BETWEEN 1913 AND 1917 REPRESENT HIS MAJOR CONTRIBUTION, THE BACKGROUND AND TRAINING FOR THIS MAGNIFICENT OUTPOURING EXPLAINS TO SOME EXTENT THE QUALITY OF HIS WORK. THOMSON LIVED AS A BOY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF GEORGIAN BAY, AND HERE HIS INBORN LOVE OF THE LAKES, WOODS AND STREAMS WAS NOURISHED THROUGHOUT HIS CHILDHOOD. HE WAS PASSIONATELY FOND OF FISHING, AND IN LATER YEARS ATTAINED AN ENVIABLE REPUTATION AS AN ANGLER EVEN AMONG THE PROFESSIONAL GUIDES OF THE (ALGONQUIN) PARK. IN THE EARLY SPRING, BEFORE THE ICE BROKE FROM THE STREAMS AND RIVERS, HE MADE HIS OWN TACKLE FROM BEADS, FEATHERS AND PIECES OF METAL, WITH THE LOVING HANDS OF A TRUE ENTHUSIAST."

The above passage was written by Canadian Artist, Albert H. Robinson, in a 1937 "Canadian Artist Series" booklet, entitled simply "Tom Thomson." Robinson had known Thomson from the graphic arts business in Toronto. He was a friend and traveling companion of painter A.Y. Jackson, and he was familiar with the other artists of the Group of Seven. It is a small but important book in the study of the early life and work of this Canadian landscape painter. The book, which has evaded me for about a dozen years, was found in the used books offered by the Gravenhurst Book Store, located on Muskoka Road. I am grateful to the book shop proprietor, for offering this wonderful piece of Canadiana. Thanks to them, I have now acquired this missing component of Thomson biography. In reality, I've been trying to acquire a "fine condition" copy of the Robinson book, but most of the books I found, in the past five years, were badly damaged, and seriously over-priced. I've been rustling-up Thomson reference material, since the mid 1990's. My personal "Thomson archives," built-up one book, one article, one document at a time, has been used extensively in four previous feature series, which have run in regional publications, primarily in the examination of the artist's mysterious death in July 1917, while traversing Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake. The little booklet was published by The Ryerson Press, of Toronto, and designed and printed by one of the best known graphics company, in Canada at the time…….Rous & Mann Limited, where many of Canada's painters got their start in the art profession. Both Thomson and Robinson came to work for Rous & Mann by 1912, leaving the Grip Co.

In 1937 when Robertson published the brief biographical text, on Thomson, accompanied by full color reproductions of the artist's best known creations, there had only been a few books and articles written about his life and art, following his sudden death. Only several months after Thomson's death, his biggest supporter, Dr. J.M. McCallum had contributed an article on his friend, to the Canadian Magazine, dated October 1917. F.B. Housser made mention of Thomson in his book, Canadian Art Movement, in 1926. In 1927, O.J. Stevenson wrote about Thomson in a text entitled "A People's Best," and in the same year, Newton MacTavish mentioned him in the book, "The Fine Arts in Canada." Blodwen Davies came next, with one of two pieces on Thomson, the first being "Paddle and Palette," in 1930, and then "Tom Thomson," in 1935. Robinson had begun the Canadian Landscape Painters in 1932. I'm still missing several of these early Thomson references, but I'm forever hopeful I can fill these in before the 100th anniversary of his death, in July 2017, when I hope to launch another series of articles on his art career in Canada.

"My first meeting with Thomson was about 1908. A tall, lanky young man in a dark blue serge suit and gray flannel shirt applied for a position in the art department of Grip Limited, where I was art director. He was clean cut, almost classical in features, with a mop of black hair combed down over his right forehead. There was something intriguing about Thomson, a quiet reserve, a reticence almost approaching bashfulness. There was no bombast or assertiveness as he handed me a bundle of his work and asked if there was an opening in the art department."

Robinson writes, "His samples consisted mostly of lettering and decorative designs applied to booklet covers and some labels. A quick glance at his drawings revealed something more than mechanical and technical proficiency; there was feeling for spacing and arrangement, an over-tone of intellectual as well as aesthetic approach to his work, and we quickly closed arrangements for him to join the staff. Shortly after hiring him, I received a gratuitous and unsolicited telephone call from his previous employer, belittling Thomson as an erratic and difficult man in a department. This was as absurd as it was untrue. Thomson was a most diligent, reliable and capable craftsman. Nothing seemed to disturb the even tenor of his way. Only once did I see him lose his temper and that was in 1912. A man under the influence of liquor got into the studio and made himself as objectionable as possible. Tom tried to continue his work, but when the visitor became personally abusive, Tom's slow temper finally rose. He took off his coat and threw the visitor out of the building. The noise of overturning chairs and tables attracted my attention, but by the time I got there, Tom was brushing imaginary dust off his hands and settling back in to finish his drawing."

"Tom Thomson possessed a complete and satisfactory world within himself." wrote Albert Robinson, adding, "He apparently did not feel any great need for human companionship, and so made friends slowly. When he joined "Grip" (graphic company in Toronto), it was some time before he found common interests with other members of the art staff. Among his fellow workers in the department, were such men as J.E.H. MacDonald, F. Horsman Varley, Frank Carmichael, Arthur Lismer, William Broadhead, Frank (Franz) Johnston, T.W. McLean, Ben Jackson, Ivor Lewis and many others. These men sketched and painted in their spare time and during their holidays. Ben Jackson was an enthusiastic fisherman who arranged his sketching trips with angling opportunities. Thomson and Jackson were soon planning trips together, lunge fishing in Scugog Lake, or trout fishing in some favorite stream known to Tom. Jackson took his paints along as a mild diversion from fishing, and on one of these trips made a sketch of Tom which now hangs in the National Gallery, Ottawa. Jackson who had fished the streams of New Brunswick, with crack fishermen from the New England states, said that he never saw anyone who could cast a fly with the ease and precision of Thomson. On some of these trips Tom began making the casual sketch, and occasionally joined other members of the staff on their sketching trips round Toronto."

There is a well known black and white photograph of Thomson fly fishing below the Tea Lake Dam, just west of Tea Lake, and Canoe Lake where Thomson resided when not on a fishing or sketching trip. Our family always stopped in at the Tea Lake dam, on our camping or day trips to the park. We have stood on those same rocks as Thomson did, in the early 1900's, and where he anchored himself, to sketch the original dam. It is a beautiful and quiet little place, that afforded him a perfect campsite to both fish and paint.

Robinson points out that, "William Broadhead, a brilliant young English artist, after listening all winter to McLean's stories of canoeing and camping in the wilds, was fired with a desire to see the country himself, and in the summer of 1911, Broadhead and Thomson set out on a canoe trip through the Mississauga Reserve, leaving the rails at Biscotasing. This was, I believe, Thomson's first experience on an extended camping trip in the north. It was also Thomson's first serious sketching trip. He brought back a number of sketches although he lost some in a canoe upset. These sketches were timid and self conscious in execution, but had caught the real northern character. I recall one in particular of drowned land which impressed me as having the weird loneliness of the country. It was on this trip also, that Thomson met Grey Owl, (before he was exposed as englishman, Archie Belaney) now known in America and Europe as author and lecturer, who visited him in Toronto the following winter."

The artist Robinson, writes of his friend Thomson, by noting a change in employment status in the Ontario printing industry. "In 1912 I became associated with Rous & Mann Limited, and several of the artists, including Thomson, followed to the new art department, where he worked until the spring of 1914. In the summer of 1912, Thomson took his first extended vacation in Algonquin Park, and brought back a series of sketches which showed a tremendous advance in technical power and purity of color. Strolling up from the station (in Toronto) in his woodsman outfit and carrying the bundle of sketches, he reported his return to work and left the sketches for inspection. We urged him to paint one of his sketches upon a large canvas. So 'A Northern Lake' came into being in 1913, his first attempt on a large canvas. It attracted the admiration of his fellow artists, and to his astonishment was purchased by the Government of Canada."

"J.E.H. MacDonald told Dr. J.M. McCallum of Toronto, about Thomson's north country sketches. The genial doctor soon looked him up and persuaded him to devote his entire time to painting. His art training had been and continued to be the association with competent painters. The few remaining years of his life he devoted whole-heartedly to painting, sketching in the spring, summer and fall, and returning to his studio "Shack" on Severn Street to work on large canvases during the winter months." wrote Robinson, adding, "The basic knowledge of design obtained through his commercial art training explains the decorative beauty of composition and arrangement which so marks his painting. In this respect, there is a common bond between Thomson and J.E.H. MacDonald. Both were eminent and capable designers, and both approached the problem of landscape painting with a finely discriminating knowledge of form and arrangement. MacDonald, however, felt the appeal of a greater variety of subject matter, while Thomson concentrated with intensity on the Northern Ontario wilderness which claimed his whole devotion. Both of these men made important contributions to Canadian painting, evolving technics which were personal and adequate and unclouded either by convention or tradition. The work of each was alive with charm of design and beauty of color."

Robinson suggested that "From year to year Thomson grew in ability to summarize, in the beauty of his color 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 color 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. 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 true and swift insight into the heart of all that was beautiful, gave him skill and power to isolate essentials, which lifted his landscapes from the purely representative to the realms of personal creative art."

It was Thomson's friend, J.E.H. MacDonald, who penned the inscription, on the plaque of the memorial cairn, on Canoe Lake's Hayhurst Point, that reads, "To the memory of Tom Thomson, artist, woodsman, and guide, who was drowned in Canoe Lake, July 8th, 1917. He lived humbly but passionately with the wild. It made him brother to all untamed things in nature. It drew him apart and revealed itself wonderfully to him. It sent him out from the woods only to show these revelations and it too him to itself at last."

For a wee bit more on Tom Thomson, please join me for tomorrow's blog. Thanks for visiting today.

Collecting Tom Thomson Memorabilia

THE CHEAPSKATE COLLECTOR / HISTORIAN - HUNTING RESOURCE MATERIAL ON TOM THOMSON-

THE MISSION TO STAY ON BUDGET - OR AT LEAST CLOSE

WHEN I FREQUENTLY WRITE ABOUT MY WIFE AND I, TAKING OUR WEEKLY ANTIQUE JAUNTS, AND THE "ADVENTURES IN DISCOVERY" THEY MOST OFTEN BECOME BY CIRCUMSTANCE, THERE IS NO FICTION TO THE STORIES. IT CAN GET WEIRD OUT THERE, WITH THE THINGS WE FIND, AND PEOPLE WE COME ACROSS, WHO HAVE WHAT WE'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR. THERE ARE COINCIDENCE CONSTANTLY, THAT MAKE YOU WONDER WHO'S PULLING THE STRINGS. WE NOT ONLY FIND WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR, BUT A LITTLE EXTRA TO WRITE ABOUT. SERENDIPITY IS A GOOD WORD TO DESCRIBE OUR MISSIONS OF DISCOVERY. LET'S JUST SAY, WE COME HOME WITH SOME INTERESTING TALES…..AND LIKE I MENTIONED EARLIER…..THERE'S NO FICTION INVOLVED. AS ANTIQUE DEALERS AND COLLECTORS, WE'VE OFTEN FOUND OURSELVES IN THE MOST CURIOUS SITUATIONS, ALL OF A SUDDEN, IN SHOPS AND HOMES AROUND OUR REGION. WE'VE COME IN CONTACT WITH MANY UNIQUE AND STORIED FOLKS, BY SIMPLE CONFLUENCE OF PROFESSION AND TRAVEL. IF YOU'RE DOING THE SAME AS US, THEN YOU KNOW HOW COINCIDENCE AND HAPPENSTANCE CAN CHANGE THE COURSE OF A DAY'S OUTING. WE JUST GO WITH THE FLOW. KARMA. OF THIS WE PAY EXTREME ATTENTION. HISTORY DOES REPEAT NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY.

THE AVERAGE ANTIQUE OUTINGS, OF COURSE, ARE ALWAYS HINGED ON FINDING PIECES TO BUY FOR RE-SALE (PAYS THE GAS AND GROCERIES FOR THE WEEK), AS WELL AS ACQUIRING SOMETHING THAT MIGHT FIT INTO OUR HOUSE, OR INFILL A NEEDED COMPONENT IN OUR NUMEROUS "ON-THE-GO" COLLECTIONS. I HAVE A LENGTHY LIST OF OUT-OF-PRINT AND RARE REGIONAL HISTORIES I WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE, WHEN THE PRICE AND OPPORTUNITY PRESENTS. THIS IS A TOUGH ORDER. JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE TARGETS, IT DOESN'T MEAN WE ARE TETHERED TO THEM. IT IS ALSO A REALITY, WE NEVER ARRIVE HOME WITHOUT SOME SUCCESSES IN TOW. MUSKOKA IS A GOOD PLACE TO HUSTLE-UP COLLECTIBLES. IT'S A GRIND AS MUCH AS IT IS RECREATIONAL.

IN 1989-90, I WALKED AWAY FROM TWO EDITORIAL POSITIONS, IN MUSKOKA, BECAUSE I COULDN'T AGREE WITH THEIR POLICIES, OR SECURE THE KIND OF ARRANGEMENT I WANTED WITH BOTH PUBLISHERS. I WAS LOOKING AFTER MY TWO WEE LADS, WHILE SUZANNE WAS BACK AT HER TEACHING JOB, AND WE ALSO HAD A BUDDING ANTIQUE BUSINESS. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A TROUBLESOME EMPLOYEE. HARD TO MANAGE. VERY OPINIONATED. STRONG-WILLED AND ARGUMENTATIVE. I WAS AN EDITOR. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PAIN IN THE ASS. IT WAS PART OF THE TERRITORY TO BUCK COMPLACENCY, AND GET AT THE STORY WITHIN THE STORY. IN MY DEFENSE, I WAS A PROLIFIC WRITER, WHO SELDOM IF EVER MADE AN ERROR IN PRINT, AND THERE WERE NO COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE VOLUME OF WORK I COMPLETED EACH AND EVERY WEEK. I SELDOM TOOK HOLIDAYS. I LOVED TO WRITE. IT MAY BE OBVIOUS ON THIS AND MY OTHER BLOGSITES. I WANTED TO WORK FROM HOME. IF I WAS CONTENTED AS A WRITER, I COULD FILL TWO NEWSPAPERS A WEEK. I HELD INTERVIEWS AT MY HOUSE REGULARLY. IT'S ALSO TRUE, MORE THAN ONE VISITOR LEFT, OUR HOUSE, WITH CHOCOLATE FINGERPRINTS ON THEIR PANTS. THE BOYS AND THEIR CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. MOM MADE THEM!

I'M SURE BACK THEN, THOSE SAME NEWSPAPER MANAGERS FIGURED THEY'D KNOCKED ME OUT OF THE PARK…..AT LEAST IN THIS REGION. THERE WERE FEW OTHER PLACES TO WRITE. I TRIED RADIO BUT NEVER REALLY LOST MY NERVOUSNESS ON AIR. WHEN A FEW OF MY REPORTER CHUMS ASSUMED I WAS DONE AS WRITER, TO NEVER WHACK OUT COPY AGAIN ON THAT OLD UNDERWOOD MANUAL, SUZANNE ENCOURAGED ME TO IGNORE THEM, AND GET BACK TO WORK. OUTSIDE OF A VERY BRIEF HIATUS, I STARTED WRITING AGAIN. I JUST WASN'T GETTING PAID FOR PUBLISHED ARTICLES. BUT I FOUND, THERE WERE MANY OTHER REWARDS OTHER THAN A WEEKLY PAY CHEQUE. FOR ONE THING, I WAS ABLE TO ADVERTISE MY ANTIQUE BUSINESS. I'D GIVE THE NEWSPAPERS A SERIES OF FEATURE COLUMNS, ON LOCAL HISTORY, (FOR EXAMPLE), AND THEY WOULD PROVIDE ME WITH A SMALL ADVERTISING BLOCK. I DO THE SAME TODAY. IT WORKS OUT MUCH BETTER THAN IF I WAS A STAFFER. FOR ONE THING, I DON'T HAVE TO ATTEND RIDICULOUS ADMINISTRATIVE MEETINGS, TO HEAR PUBLISHERS COMPLAIN ABOUT THE HIGH PRICE AND LOW PRODUCTIVITY OF REPORTING STAFF.

THE REAL ISSUE WAS BEING ABLE TO WORK FROM A MORE CONVENIENT LOCATION THAN A BUSY NEWSPAPER OFFICE. LOOKING AFTER THE BOYS MEANT THAT I NEEDED TO WORK AT HOME, WHICH WAS ONLYU A BLOCK AWAY FROM THE HERALD-GAZETTE OFFICE. WITH THE LOW WAGE I WAS GETTING, EVEN AS AN EDITOR, THERE WAS NO WAY WE COULD AFFORD DAYCARE. SUZANNE AND I MADE A PACT, BEFORE WE HAD KIDS, THAT THERE WOULD ALWAYS BE ONE OF US HOME TO LOOK AFTER THEM. IT WAS NON-NEGOTIABLE. AND WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED UP TO OUR OWN CONTRACT. SO I NEEDED TO BE ABLE TO HAVE THE FLEXIBILITY AT HOME, AND WITH NUMEROUS COLUMNS AND FEATURES IN DEMAND, I HAD TO HAVE A LARGE QUANTITY OF AVAILABLE RESEARCH MATERIAL. THIS HERALDED A TIME IN MY COLLECTING LIFE, WHEN I HAD TO BRING THE THREE ACTIVE PROFESSIONS INTO ONE POSITIVE ACTION AFTER THE OTHER. AS A DEALER, I HAD TO SCOUT OUT THE BOOKS I NEEDED FOR RESEARCH. I COULDN'T AFFORD TO PAY MARKET VALUE FOR THESE MATERIALS, OR WE WOULD HAVE GONE BROKE. MOST OF THE REGIONAL HISTORIES I NEEDED, WERE PRICED FROM $40 A COPY TO $200. THERE WAS A VERY IMPORTANT ANGLICAN CHURCH HISTORY, IN THE DIOCESE OF ALGOMA, ON THE EARLY CHURCHES IN SOUTH MUSKOKA, FROM THE 1870'S, THAT I REALLY NEEDED. THE BOOK WAS LOANED TO ME BY A BOOK SELLER FRIEND, TO MAKE NOTES FROM. BUT THAT PIONEER TEXT WOULD HAVE SERVED, AS A BOUNTIFUL HERITAGE RESOURCE, ON DOZENS OF OTHER PROJECTS. I COULDN'T AFFORD THE $200 ASKING PRICE. IT WAS ACCURATELY PRICED, BUT ON OUR BUDGET, THERE WAS NO WAY. I HAD TO FIND A WAY TO GET WHAT I WANTED AT A FRACTION OF THE MARKET VALUE FOR THE SAME BOOKS.

While the antique dealer "me" was charged with finding the out-of-print books, I needed for my archives (to facilitate research for articles), the collector "me-also" had to make sure the book was worth the price, had all of its pages, was in good condition, and was priced sensibly, all considered. The historian "me" however, was broke. I couldn't buy these important resources through the business, because I didn't want to sell them. I couldn't really buy these as a collector, because I couldn't afford the luxury……that and the reality, I would have to use the book regularly, potentially damaging it, as researchers are known to do. The historian, you see, had to consider all of this, in advance, because the only deal that was going to fly, was if the antique hunter, and the collector, could donate their expertise, to find "cheap" or "bargain" copies of the titles most needed. You want to talk about discipline. I never thought I had it in me, to be so persnickety about price. So at this time, I made another pact…..this one with my other professions. Help me build an archives of regional histories on "the cheap." I didn't want to sacrifice anything in the process. Perfectly conserved books, with the information I needed, without needing to whip out a credit card to make the purchase. A tall order. But I did it.

When I mentioned in yesterday's blog, about acquiring a 1937 first edition of the Canadian Artist Series booklets, on "Tom Thomson," by Albert H. Robson, it was part of this ongoing necessity to buy affordably. I began this hunt and gather program, by late 1989. I've done pretty well considering the budget I've had to work with, and the competition for these specific titles in our area of Ontario. I have wanted this "Tom Thomson" book for the past twelve years, but I have not been able to afford it from antiquarian book dealers….especially in fine condition, with only a very slight fading of the green cloth covering on the spine. Seeing as I'm not re-selling this book, as an antique dealer, and I couldn't pay the price for one with a dustjacket, the $25. price fit the historian's budget very nicely. Seeing as I have written four Tom Thomson features series, in the past dozen years, it's certainly true, that I could have really used this reference book before now. Seeing as I'm only compensated with an advertisement, and not a regular pay cheque, for these submitted features, I simply can't afford to make exceptions, and pay market value. The clean, secure, well conserved book, is probably worth about $70, if you were to demand similar condition from an out-of-print book dealer. With all the books I needed, to build my own reference library, I could have easily invested $30,000 to $50,000, and still have missed buying everything I needed. My antique dealer resourcefulness however, was able to ferret-out a huge number of these books for well under $5,000. I've just had to be abundantly patient, and wait for opportunity to present.

In the case of research I was working on, regarding the mysterious death of Canadian painter, Tom Thomson, while paddling Canoe Lake (circa 1917), I found my first significant resource material in a collection of newspaper articles available locally, in a free publication known as The Weekender. A former Algonquin Park trapper / guide, by the name of Ralph Bice, wrote about Thomson's death as being accidental, occurring while the heavily drinking artist (just speculation), decided to pee overboard …….toppling out, and hitting his head on the canoe before entering the water. I had also been following other Thomson related articles in the local press, particularly stories about Judge William Little, who had written the 1970's ground-breaking book, "The Tom Thomson Mystery," where he refutes the accidental drowning theory, agreed-upon by an inadequate coroner's jury in July 1917. Mr. Bice did not believe in Judge Little's theory, and wrote to the contrary, that it was nonsense to believe Thomson had been murdered. The newspaper articles, and there were quite a few, cost me nothing. I went to the local Salvation Army Thrift Shop, here in Gravenhurst, (on the same day I read about the death of Judge Little), and coincidentally found a signed, first edition copy of his book, with dustjacket, and protective plastic cover, for the price of one dollar. This would normally be a $40 book, as a signed first edition. I was on my way. Judge Little's book, in my opinion, is still one of the most important resource books on Tom Thomson generally.

I went to a local second hand book shop, and tried to pick up some bargain "Thomson" biographies, of which there have been a few, even most recently. Outside of buying a few important ones, such as the landmark reference book, "Tom Thomson; Silence and the Storm," by David Silcox and Harold Town, and "Shorelines," by Roy MacGregor, there was no way I could afford to buy much more. So I wrote a small add-on note, in my regular newspaper column, asking if any one had books or newspaper clippings about Tom Thomson, they wouldn't mind loaning a poor tapped-out historian. One book shop owner, in Gravenhurst, gave me a large quantity of clippings and a few duplicates of books I already had. I was building quite a collection after only a couple of months. The point of this diatribe is, after so many published features on Thomson already, I'm still working on my "must have .…..must be able to afford" list. Due to the reality my family has suffered greatly, with all the research material I've surrounded them with, for years, I plan on leaving the archives to my boys…..who may one day make a small fortune on books and reference material, I've had to scrounge-up since the early 1990's. They should be able to do quite well for themselves, in fact, as I very seldom ever paid more than a quarter of the book's actual market value.

Even the cheap historian, would have been willing to spend a little more for the Robson book, because it is one I have long needed to fill the gap of information, about Thomson's work as a graphic artist. I've been able to get by without-it for so long, because I've concentrated instead, on the circumstances of his untimely demise; not his artistic life…….until now that is. Now I've got a wealth of knowledge at my finger-tips, thanks to dogged determination to acquire "cheaply." Getting the best for the least.

I want to share some insights about one of Canada's best known landscape artists, who had a short but incredible career as a painter……information recovered from this little gem purchased at the Gravenhurst Book Store, on Muskoka Road.

"PAINTER OF OUR NORTH COUNTRY, 1877-1917 - Except to a very limited number of friends, Tom Thomson is a remote and mystical figure who broke into the art firmament with a sudden and dazzling brilliancy, and then disappeared as suddenly into the great unknown. During the last decade his career has been wrapped in mists of mystery and half truths somewhat obscuring a clear vision of the man and his work. These facts remain, that in March, 1913, Thomson exhibited his first canvas, 'A Northern Lake,' at an exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists in Toronto. This picture was immediately purchased by the Ontario government. In July 1917 his tragic and unexpected death carried away, at the age of forty, a man who in those short intervening years left a profound and lasting imprint on the art of Canada. The work which he produced during those four years is sufficient to proclaim him, beyond question, one of the most significant painters in the art history of the Dominion."

Robson, in his 1937 text, (published by Ryerson Press), noted, "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. He painted the lake country with fiery concentration, rarely traveling farther than his beloved Algonquin Park (Ontario), where Canoe Lake was his regular headquarters. Other Canadian artists had painted the north country before Thomson; it is both unfair and untrue to say that he discovered it as paintable material. But it is true to say, that he was the first painter really to interpret the north in its various subtleties of mood and feeling, free from influences of European traditions and formulas. His personal knowledge of the country and his inherent honesty, dictated its own technical methods of expression."

Insightfully, as a man who had known Thomson, from the graphics industry the two had worked, he writes, "It is not easy to explain in words the power and magic beauty of Thomson's sketches. There is a subtle insight revealed in the fluency of his expression, and intimate understanding that radiates from every brush stroke, lifting his paintings to the highest level of Canadian artistic achievement. He had that rare inner vision that sees beauty in subjects which would not commonly be called beautiful. Through the windows of his own eyes he interpreted intrinsic truths with unerring accuracy. While many of Thomson's sketches are amazingly facile, there was no conscious striving after cleverness; for cleverness is a superficial quality which casts a fog between us and true beauty of expression. In his work he adhered to the broad base of representation, weaving a selective concrete realism into a lyrical pattern glowing with vitality and sparkling with individuality."

Even though it was known of Tom Thomson, during his life, that he was abundantly generous with his paintings, giving them to many admirers without a dime of profit, and having been seen flinging finished (birch) panels into the Algonquin Lakes, because he didn't like them, it is not likely, even the most talented collector, will find original material in second hand shops or flea markets. If you were interested in the work of Thomson, there are thousands of options, to build a respectful, interesting, and somewhat valuable collection without ever owning an original sketch, or a framed art piece. Every few years you do hear about a Thomson painting, being found in a cottage or estate somewhere on the continent, and being sold at auction for a king's ransom. These events are rare. But there are many galleries that do showcase his work, and hundreds of books that document his painting years. My early research of the Tom Thomson mystery (I also agree with Judge Little's murder theory) actually inspired our whole family to begin camping in Algonquin Park, and visiting the many places where the artist had lived and painted while living in the region. I have canoed many times over the precise spot where Thomson is said to have gone missing, and then where his body was found floating in Canoe Lake. I have visited his memorial cairn, on Hayhurst Point, on Canoe Lake, and the ghost town of Mowat, where he was originally buried. It is said his body was exhumed for re-burial in Leith, Ontario, but an exhumation, in the 1950's, by Judge Little (on no authority to do so) found a body still in the Mowat Cemetery plot. What a crazy tale of one former painter and two grave sites, both which are supposed to be the final resting place.

"Thomson did not travel the well-trodden highways of derivative painting, but made trails of his own where no man had stepped before. His passion for the woods was so intense that he could paddle the lakes and streams, and camp under the stars by himself, apparently without any sense of loneliness. The feeling of personal kinship which he thus gained resulted in numerous sketches of widely varying moods of the north not usually observed by the more casual visitor," wrote Robson, of his former colleague.

In tomorrow's blog, I'd like to share a little more about Thomson, as assessed by Albert Robson, who provides some excellent information about the early career of this storied landscape artist. After desiring this same book for years, I have to tell you, it's a pleasure to finally, and affordably, be in its company. The material has been quoted, in part, by many other Thomson biographers, but much of it, for whatever reason, hasn't been fully utilized and appreciate by the public……wanting to know more about the painter of such iconic Canadian panels as "The Northern River," "The West Wind," and "The Jack Pine."

Please join me tomorrow, for a little more from this rare Canadiana, on the life, times and demise of Tom Thomson.

Tom Thomson, Canadiana, First World War

WINTER IN MUSKOKA AT LAST - GOOD FINDS ON THE ANTIQUE TRAIL - CANADIAN SYMBOLS BACK ON TRACK

BLUSTERY WEATHER AND AN AILING VAN, BUT WE MADE IT BACK HOME

THE HALLMARK OF THE COLLECTOR? THE UNDENIABLE SIGN OF A TRUE ANTIQUE HUNTER? YOU BET! A VAN FULL, I MEAN FULL-UP OF NEAT STUFF! A 1930'S BAKE TABLE WITH FLOUR DRAWER, TWO SMALL PINE TABLES, A NICE VINTAGE GLASS VASE, (PROBABLY AN AMERICAN FACTORY PIECE), A VERY OLD PINE PICTURE FRAME THAT WILL FIT A SMALL ORIGINAL, OIL-ON-MASONITE (LANDSCAPE) I BOUGHT LAST WEEK. WE SECURED A COUPLE OF NEAT HAMILTON, ONTARIO, COLLECTIBLE TOOTHPICK HOLDERS (WE THINK), MADE IN GERMANY, DEPICTING THE CITY COURTHOUSE, AND THE OTHER THE C.N.R. STATION WITH A STEAM ENGINE, WITH PASSENGER CARS, ARRIVING AT THE PLATFORM. I PURCHASED TWO VINTAGE MILITARY PHOTOGRAPHS, ONE DATING BACK TO WORLD WAR I, AN UNIDENTIFIED CANADIAN BATTALION (SEE PIC), AND THE OTHER A "ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE MANNING DEPOT, FEB. 1941 - PERMANENT SECURITY GUARD TRAINING CLASS."

AS FOR OUR ONGOING CHALLENGE TO FIND CANADIAN SYMBOLS, ON ANTIQUES AND COLLECTIBLES WE FIND ON OUR WEEKLY HUNTS, TODAY WAS MARKEDLY BETTER THAN LAST WEEK…..WHEN WE "GOT SKUNKED." FOUND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, EXCEPT A LEAK IN OUR POWER STEERING PUMP. I WAS ALSO DEALING WITH THAT TODAY IN THE MIDST OF A SNOWSTORM WITH GALE FORCE WINDS. THANKFULLY IT WASN'T COMPLETELY CYCLONIC, BECAUSE I'D HAVE FOLLOWED MY BASEBALL CAP INTO THE SKY, WITH AN OIL BOTTLE IN MY HAND. EVERY TIME WE HAVE CAR TROUBLE IT'S IN A VIOLENT SNOW STORM. SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME BUT YOU KNOW, I JUST COULDN'T. WE MADE SOME GOOD FINDS, AND I WAS ABLE TO MAKE A CONTACT WITH A FRIEND WHO OWNS NUMEROUS RICHARD KARON PAINTINGS…..AND HAS AGREED TO SHARE THEM, FOR THE ARTIST'S BIOGRAPHY I'M PREPARING FOR THIS SITE, TO BE PUBLISHED LATER THIS MONTH. MR. KARON WAS A WELL KNOWN ARTIST, WHO HAD A STUDIO NEAR THE VILLAGE OF BAYSVILLE, ONTARIO, IN THE TOWNSHIP OF LAKE OF BAYS. IF I'D LET A LITTLE SNOW THROW US OFF OUR GAME…..I'D HAVE MISSED THIS CHANCE MEETING, AND SOME VERY CONTENTING ACQUISITIONS AS WELL. TRUTH IS, I LOOK FORWARD TO OUR ANTIQUING WEEKENDS, AND I HAVEN'T MISSED ON IN OVER A DECADE. SUZANNE IS A TEACHER, SO OUR SUMMER ADVENTURES ARE SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, INSTEAD OF THESE TWO DAY EVENTS, WHILE SHE'S WORKING.

Back in January, my wife and I decided to challenge ourselves as antique dealers. Sometimes we have to do this kind of thing, to shake off complacency. We thought it would be neat, to follow the lead of a book, released some years back, entitled "The Maple Leaf Forever - A Celebration of Canadian Symbols," by Donna and Nigel Hutchins," published in 2006 by The Boston Mills Press. The fabulously illustrated, large format book, profiles many of the most recognized national symbols, dating back well into the 1800's, and progressively pronounced through the 1900's. The early pieces were not just souvenirs, but signs of a budding sense of of national identity, and pride in a fledgling nation. So it's not uncommon to find many of these symbols, depicted in early Canadian folk art, ranging from pine carvings, whirly-gigs, quilts and handcrafted rugs, to weather-vanes and food packaging labels…..many of those being designed by some of Canada's soon to be "Group of Seven" artists…..such as A.J. Casson. We decided to try our hand at hunting for these nationalistic pieces ourselves, and share our finds with readers. We decided to do this symbol hunt over the course of one year, but for the July 1st, Canada Day celebration, we also planned to show our halfway-there progress. The trick here, is that there are three defining symbols we're looking for……the beaver, the maple leaf, and the image, insignia etc., of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We have been going at a snail's pace so far this winter, with only a few venues open, to browse for these treasures. We've made finds on all but one weekend so far. Today I was able to get a nice circa 1967, Canadian Centennial Plate, marking the country's Confederation 1867-1967, with the image of the "Fathers of Confederation." A border of provincial crests is composed of the shields, connected by a wreath of maple leaves. The commemorative plate was made by Wood & Sons of England. Cost, $2.00. The second find, which is much newer but an important resource book for us (we hunt for maple syrup related antiques), is entitled "The Maple Syrup Book," by Janet Eagleson & Rosemary Hasner, published by Boston Mills Press, in 2006. As a good condition used book, it cost us $7.00. The maple leaf is clearly visible on one of the maple syrup bottles, pictured on the front cover. We have a number of books on Maple Syrup production, and seeing as we are in an area where there are a significant number of sugar bushes, and many pioneer pieces still surfacing at farm and estate auctions, we like to have as many guide books like this as possible. This book offers a mix of new pictures, but blends them with images of maple syrup collectibles, including First Nations birch bark containers, wooden spiles and artifacts related to maple syrup making in Canada. As I've written about before, I could very easily opt to live in a sugar shack for the rest of my life. The great joy of the season, here in Muskoka, is to be invited to a sugar bush, when the sap is being boiled down. The allure of the woodlands, and the sweet smell of syrup in production…..did I mention the wood smoke, makes it truly, and naturally intoxicating. So I was happy to get this book, to add to my collection, with the small assortment of maple candy molds we found on our travels in Muskoka. As a long time reporter for the Muskoka and regional press, I have written many feature stories on maple syrup making in these beautifully haunted Canadian woodlands…..so this seven dollar investment, will help with research, on my very next call to the sugar bush.

Canadian Landscape artist, Tom Thomson - and what a nice find

In July 1917, an up and coming Canadian landscape artist, vanished while traversing (Ontario's) Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake. His canoe was found short while after he had left the dock at the Mowat Hotel, heading out for a short fishing trip on another lake. An experienced canoeist, on a perfectly calm summer day, it is alleged Tom Thomson fell out of his canoe, while having a pee over the side. At least this is what some folks have suggested as the cause of his fall into the water. Tipping from the canoe, hitting his head on the gunnel, entering the water unconscious. There was no water found in his lungs. His body was found floating between two islands, about a week after he went missing. The hastily arranged, and incomplete coroner's report, concluded Thomson had been the victim of accidental drowning. The ink wasn't even dry on the coroner's signature, on that conclusive, official document, before area residents were claiming it was more likely, the artist had been killed by someone he knew, also residing in the lakeside community of Mowat. This and the fact that Thomson's body was exhumed from the Mowat Cemetery, where it was buried, and shipped for re-burial in the family's plot, in the village of Leith (near Owen Sound). Thomson had actually been buried before the coroner could have a look at the body. The Thomson family wanted their son home, and Tom's brother George, is said to have made arrangements with a local undertaker, to handle the exhumation.

The coroner, at the inquest, had relied solely on hearsay, as there had been no witnesses to the mishap. Key testimony was provided by those who found the body, including a written report (from the on-shore autopsy) from Dr. Howland, who was cottaging on the lake at the time. An impromptu exhumation, by researchers into Thomson's death, in the mid 1950's, found that the Mowat gravesite, that had once belonged to the Canadian artist, as a final resting place, was found to have a casket and a body within. A supposedly empty plot wasn't empty at all. So for decades the question thusly has been, "is Thomson's body still in Algonquin Park?" "Or is he buried in the family plot in Leith, Ontario?" One revered Canadian artist. Two graves. It's still a mystery that inspires several books each decade, but never answering the question. If one was to leave flowers……would they be placed atop the plot in Leith, or on the still-occupied grave in Mowat (Canoe Lake)? There has never been a conclusive examination of the gravesite in Leith, to prove once and for all, Tom Thomson's body was returned home. This is a thumbnail history of Thomson's demise, and all the interesting situations that have developed since that tragic day, when Canada lost one of its most promising painters. You can read more about the Tom Thomson mystery, in a series of fully researched articles (published in Curious; The Tourist Guide originally) you can archive, on my Muskoka and Algonquin Ghosts blogside, by clicking on……..http://hauntedmuskoka.blogspot.com/

The reason for this little intro, is that I have just secured a copy of small book, the second one written about Tom Thomson, originally published in 1937, twenty years after his sudden death. The first book, was being researched in the late 1920's, courtesy a Canadian historian / biographer, by the name of Blodwen Davies. I believe her book came out in the early 1930's. She was the first writer to suggest, there was ample evidence, Tom Thomson had been murdered. In fact, she raised her concerns about this, to the Ontario Provincial Police, but they refused to re-open the case. This was after she had conducted many interviews of area residents, who had known and worked with Thomson, while he stayed on Mowat Lodge property. He worked from a small cabin on the property. I own a later printing of this book, but as a rigorous Thomson researcher, who also believes the artist was murdered by Mowat Lodge hotelier Shannon Fraser, my file remains open to any new information. I've published four feature series in regional publications, over the past dozen years, and the one book I've wanted to own, for my Tom Thomson collection, has continued to evade me. This afternoon, I was looking through the old and out of print books at a local shop, here in Gravenhurst, and by golly, there it was. It is a tiny green cloth-covered, hardcover copy, of Albert H. Robson's book, entitled simply, "Tom Thomson," published by the Ryerson Press, in Toronto. It was the first time in the study of Tom Thomson, that a publication paid for a collection of full color re-prints of his art panels. It isn't a big book, but it carries quite a bit of weight in terms of the early celebration of this artist's work.

Tom Thomson was one of the founders of the Canadian Group of Seven artists, although he died before it became an official art movement. The impressions of nature, by the Group of Seven, with Thomson's work considered part of this new and exciting expression of nationalism, were not well accepted by many of the mainstream art critics of the time, who preferred more classic, conservative landscapes. It has been said of Group of Seven art panels, that you could hear the wind rushing through the pine forests, and smell the hardwood hillsides, and feel the spray of waves crashing in a turbulent lake. It has been said of Thomson's depiction of the Northern Lights, that it inspired feelings of cold, isolation and loneliness. They were unconventional art panels to some…..a refreshing, liberating escape from tradition, for others…..some of them, even considered themselves bold and boisterous fans, of this artistic liberation. Several were connected to the major art galleries of the country…..proud to acquire these exciting new depictions of the nature of Canada.

I was very pleased to have found this evasive book, on Tom Thomson, that I would like to share with you, in tomorrow's blog. It was worth going out into the bitter cold, pushing back against the strong wind, and even having to keep refilling the power steering fluid reservoir, just to get back home…….with this little book in tow. Us antique hunters are crazy folk. As it is known, the antique profession attracts eccentrics……, well, by golly, we fit right in.

Thanks for joining me for this antique-hunting blog. If you think you might like to know a little bit more about one of Canada's legendary artists (who has two graves by the way), as noted in this hard to find little text, please reconnect tomorrow, and I'll share the story with you.

Goodnight John-Boy!

Woodstock, Easy Rider, Rock n' Roll, Old Recipes

COOKERY HERITAGE TASTES GOOD TOO

THE ADVENTURE TO FIND HANDWRITTEN RECIPES….WHAT KIND OF HOLY GRAIL IS THIS?

IT'S FUNNY HOW, OVER A LIFETIME IN THE COLLECTING / ANTIQUE ENTERPRISE, YOU CAN SUDDENLY CHANGE INTERESTS, AND IN MANY CASES, QUITE PROFOUNDLY. THE WAYS AND VALUES OF THE PAST, ARE LIKE GAS PRICES; SUBJECT TO EXTREME CHANGE.

WHILE I MIGHT PRESUME TO KNOW, I CAN'T REALLY SPEAK FOR ANY ONE ELSE, IN THIS REGARD. FOR ME IT HAD EVERYTHING TO DO WITH LACK OF FOCUS AND MONEY. EVEN AS A KID, I COLLECTED RANDOM SHINY OBJECTS THAT CAUGHT MY ATTENTION AT THE MOMENT. I WOULD COLLECT RELATED ITEMS FOR AWHILE, BEFORE SOMETHING ELSE TURNED MY CRANK. I LIKED A LOT OF STUFF. IF I'D HAD A RICH FAMILY, WHO LAVISHED THEIR KID WITH POCKETS-FULL OF MONEY, THEN UNQUESTIONABLY, MY COLLECTIONS WOULD HAVE BEEN EXTENSIVE, VERSUS MINOR AND SOMEWHAT UNREMARKABLE. BUT I WAS AS HAPPY AS A LARK, TO BE HUSTLING AROUND ON THE CHEAP, LOOKING FOR STUFF TO BRING HOME TO OUR SMALL ABODE. IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A HALF DOZEN BROKEN HOCKEY STICKS, USED BY SENIOR HOCKEY PLAYERS, IN BURLINGTON, ONTARIO, WHERE I SPENT MY EARLY YEARS, OR SOME REALLY NEAT HATS I SCOFFED FROM THE "LOST AND FOUND" BINS AT THE ARENA. I HAD NO BOUNDARY, EXCEPT THE FACT MY MOTHER WOULD INTERCEPT ANYTHING THAT APPEAR UNSANITARY, BEING SNUCK PAST THE FRONT DOOR. HALF THE TIME, USUALLY WITH SOAKERS AND MUDDY TROUSERS, I DIDN'T MAKE THE LIST EITHER, AND AS MERLE USED TO QUIP, "YOU LOOK LIKE A MUDLARK," FROM A CLASSIC BOOK, BY THE WAY. A LOT OF MY EARLY TREASURES, THE MODEST COLLECTIONS BEING BOLSTERED ON A DAILY BASIS, WERE CHUCKED-OUT BY MY STALWART MOTHER, WHO INSISTED THAT NEATNESS, WAS WHAT GOD WANTED MOST FROM HUMANITY. NOT NECESSARILY WORLD PEACE. NEATNESS. SHE DUSTED A VENEER COFFEE TABLE FOUR TIMES A DAY, UNTIL IT REFLECTED LIKE A MIRROR. IT WAS WORTH $15 WHEN SHE BOUGHT IT, AND IT WAS WORTH $4 AT THE END OF HER LIFE. FOR ALL THAT POLISHING, I THOUGHT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN WORTH MUCH MORE. IT WAS A DARK VENEER BUT IT WAS SO BEAUTIFULLY POLISHED, YOU COULD SEE THE PORES OF YOUR SKIN. IT WAS A PRETTY PIECE TO HER, SO THE ACTUAL VALUE DIDN'T MATTER. JUST LIKE MY OLD BROKEN HOCKEY STICKS HAD MEANING TO ME.

We're all susceptible to the influences of the world around us. Events in our lives. In November 1963, a lot of non-collectors became collectors because of one internationally important news event. The assassination of President Kennedy. All of a sudden, people who had never contemplated collecting anything more than cash in the bank, started hanging onto newspapers, magazines and books that came out immediately after the tragic event. People thought it was important to collect these news materials…..for themselves and for their kids, and grandkids. Many other world events have struck a similar chord, and whether it is Royalty memorabilia, or news of celebrity deaths, war, and trips to the moon, and sundry other adventures in outer space, we have collected those related momentous. There are collectors of hair, dental appliances and actual teeth that have belonged to celebrities, including Elvis and John Lennon. There are collectors of autographs, photographs, clothing with provenance, Scottish tartans, folk art, stamps, coins, shrunken heads and taxidermy ducks, loons, moose and deer heads. Big fish and little fish, and a wide array of other critters that have been carefully and artfully preserved. I've read about those who collect funerary materials, including antique coffins (some with windows), and of course, elaborate horse drawn hearses. Good for them. Point is, there's no limit. I love being involved in a lifestyle and business that has so much open territory to explore…..sort of a Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper "Easy Rider," kind of liberation. An open road and an open mind.

I was old enough to appreciate the entire span of the 1960's, and while I never really took to the Timothy Leary "tune in, turn on, tune out" thing, I was very curious about the hippy movement, the rapidly evolving rock 'n roll scene, and the revolution of the social / political culture of the time. I had a few records and an unreliable turn-table, and I did appreciate the whole liberating, anti-war sentiment; the "peace" movement and free love seemed worthwhile things to join. Yet no matter how much I got into the music, the psychedelics of the period, it just never rubbed off on me, that I should collect any of the relevant materials associated with this time in history. Instead, I became very much enamored with the pioneer, homesteading period, I had experienced, traveling with my parents in both Canada and United States….who insisted on taking me to a wide range of historic sites, from battlefields and old forts, to a former Jesuit Mission, from the early 1600's, in the community of Midland, Ontario. I liked the ambience….the woodsmoke, the patina of antique furnishings, and yes, the scent of old fuel-burning lamps that I found so wonderfully intoxicating. Thus the strangeness of the collector, to follow any set-down plan or rule, imposed by another. I'd go home and listen to Janis Joplin, and stare at my Easy Rider poster, and look at souvenir guide books from my favorite historic sites. It's been a life-long confluence of special interests, full of contradictions, and I suppose, a few wrong turns at Robert Johnson's haunted crossroads. For the life of me, I can't really explain, all the stuff that has influenced me, to bypass some obviously keen collecting interests, to then, suddenly change direction, to latch-on instead, to obscure collectibles, such as handwritten recipes. Here it is, 2012, and I'm still mired in the early history of Canada and the United States, loving the whole pioneer thing (I have two illuminated coal oil lamps on my desk, right now), but my two lads, Andrew and Robert, both musicians, are heading into their sixth successful year, operating a main street vintage music and collectible shop, selling restore antique instruments, from guitars to accordions, and the kind of 1960's and 70's memorabilia I should have been interested in…..but wasn't. I guess that's what happened. I transferred my latent interest to these guys, who surround themselves every day of their lives, with what I lived through….."my actuality" that I must have celebrated rather passively I'm afraid. I did grow my hair long, and owned several pairs of bell bottom pants, and I almost got to Woodstock. My mother said one of those motherly things, as I was preparing to jump into a Volkswagon love-van. "Over my dead body." The only way I was going, was to kill her. Seeing as I'm a career pacifist, who has a hard time killing insects, and loving Merle, well, I just watched the news reports and listened to the music of the day on our favorite radio station….."Chum am" of Toronto.

The other great influence I still deal with as a collector / dealer, with a few miles on the rubber, is the expense factor. I've never known a period locally, in our bailiwick of Ontario, when there have been more collector / dealers buzzing around the sale circuit. Online auctions have created many of what we used to call "attic dealers," (part time dealers) and so many antique roadshow-type television shows, have inspired lots of folks to enter the collecting game…..and the "buy / sell" of antiques and collectibles. The more competition? The greater the hustle! The more the demand, yup, vendors start to get the message, there's lots of room for price increases. Even as I write this, I'm actually bumping-up, not only interest, but potentially the asking prices, for second hand shop inventory. Boy, I'm fond of myself, aren't I? Well, it's like this. In this region, known as the District of Muskoka, I personally know every shop manager, and virtually all the staff at the small number of antique stores, thrift shops, second hand and flea market outlets; and of course large outlets such as the Gravenhurst Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, of which I'm a fixture most days of the week. They all know I write antique related columns for provincial publications, as well as this blogsite. I certainly don't mind them following along with my editorials, but it does create new realities for management. Enlightenment in a nutshell. Seeing as I am always willing to give an appraisal to shops that raise funds for the less fortunate, like the Salvation Army, I encourage them to price sensibly, proportionally to condition, and with the knowledge that many, many of their regular customers are collector / dealers, who are shoppers four seasons out of the year……not just summer time patrons. Over-pricing these folks out of the market is bad business. While it may take some of the big, big bargains away, very few collectors will argue about sensible price increases, based on researched valuations. Every now and again, however, some newly appointed manager will become an antique dealer without having earned the stripes first, and make all kinds of ridiculous price increases that turn good customers…..into fleeing patrons. I will gladly offer my expertise in general pricing, and provide more in-depth research, if it means these folks will lighten up on the fantasy valuations.

Price and its escalation has most definitely played a role in my own collecting interests, since I began as a dealer back in the late 1970's. I was always broke. But I wanted to collect. I also got the idea I should make some money on general antiques I came upon, for a good price, but didn't have any great affection. I have sold many pairs of vintage skates, for example, from simple blades on a wood base, strapped to boots, all the way up to low rise leather-boot skates, to quite a few pair of vintage speed skates. Son Andrew has quite a large skate collection now, that I have helped him develop. Point is, I have always had to shift interests because frankly, many collectibles I was interested in, were too rich on a reporter's wage. Even when we opened our first Currie family shop, in Bracebridge, Ontario, back in 1977, I had to get deals on everything we purchased, most of it requiring refinishing, just to eke out a small profit. The second shop I opened, was with my wife Suzanne, in the late 1980's, and we still had the same necessity of bargain hunting as a rule. I'd work at the shop through the day, and refinish tables and dressers in the evening, and on Sundays, when in fact, I should have been camping with the boys, or taking them fishing. Ah, the rigors of the antique trade. The chosen excesses of the free market! How many have made similar sacrifices to turn a profit?

By being frugal and a well-tutored collector, I have been fortunate to find what I like, and always what I needed, for competitive prices, and always in ample quantity. This is where vintage handwritten recipes come into play. I most recently paid thirty dollars, if memory serves, for an early 1900's recipe book from our region. It was a good price for what I was able to harvest from it, not just in recipes, but as a story-line for a future article in a monthly magazine I write for, known as "Curious; The Tourist Guide," that you can access online. I have also photographed quite a number of pages and published them on my Muskoka Cookery Heritage blog site. If we were solicited to do a cookery display, as we sometimes are asked as regional historians, I would proudly display this rare cookbook. Point is, the cost of that little book was high, for my budget, as are many regional recipe collections from the 1800's and early years of the 1900's…..based on supply and demand. We have sold many rare and out-of-print cookbooks through on-line auctions, and I can't believe the enormous prices they can attract. Suzanne and I, with our interest in the handwritten recipes, often contained in those cookbooks, most definitely benefit from the general lack of interest in collecting them for fun or for profit. Tell you what! If I published images of what these beautifully penned, hundred year old (plus) recipes looked like, matted and framed (under glass), I might soon start a rigorous price war, and a brand new trend in collecting. I have only framed a dozen or so, always with conservation (acid free) as a main concern…..and they can always be removed if needed. Hung in a retro-design or antique-laden kitchen……they would look fabulous. I'm not an interior decorator, but these bits and bobbs of cookery heritage, are both "pretty faces," and social / cultural icons….and the gravy and icing stains are provenance to be celebrated. In restaurants, especially ones looking to capture the tradition of culinary arts, these would make wonderful conversation pieces. I just prefer, at the present, to enjoy them in our safe folios.

For the price of one rare, vintage, typeset, fair condition cookbook, I could probably acquire about five pounds of handwritten recipes, from flea markets, yards sales and second hand shops, and never leave the region of Muskoka. This by the way, is what we have attempted to do, from the historical side of the equation. We wanted a regionally reflective collection, and while it doesn't mean the recipes were all inspired by the region, dating back to the 1850's, we wanted it to be representative of the population of folks who settled here……..their cultural and ethnic backgrounds of significance to the historians……more than just the "collector us." It's quite remarkable, in fact, to research through the piles of interesting recipes, spotting the significant changes to traditional fare, to suit what was grown, and available in the region as substitute (eg. herbs and spices) ingredients. Plus finding other attachments of provenance, such as a family's location in the district, and ancestral relation to Europe, especially where settlers emigrated from, most actively, during the period of the free land grant period, shortly after Canadian Confederation, in 1867. Each time we settle down to look through these interesting recipes, all pieces of culinary folkart, we find something different, quite unique and historic. A recipe Suzanne will attempt in her modern kitchen, adapting measurements used in the 1800's with what is standard today. We must be people who are easily fascinated…..because these very inexpensive acquisitions, satisfy our collecting interests, and motivate us as historians, to interpret and highlight them whenever an opportunity arises. Not as exciting as collecting Railroad and Ship memorabilia, medical-use skeletons, fossils or sculptures, but it works for us as a retiring couple, who love kitchen lore, cookery memorabilia, vintage food advertising, and did we mention…..food. My wife has made me what I am today. And I'm on a diet because of it. You see I can write this, because I know she won't read my blogs. In fact, since we were married, she has full knowledge I'm a writer but just doesn't care. We do share the joy and adventures in the antique profession however, and that's all we need. Don't let her know, for my sake, that I've just now accused her of fattening me up. I've got a good and satisfying life here at Birch Hollow. It hinges on me keeping my mouth shut about certain matrimonial situations……like me needing to diet, so I can indulge evermore at Easter.

Thanks so much for joining today's antique / collectible blog. More to come.

Collecting Handwritten Recipes

A STRANGE TRANSITION FROM HOCKEY CARDS, OLD BOOKS, CANADIAN ART, TO COOKERY HERITAGE

THE WIDE AND WHACKY RANGE OF COLLECTING INTEREST LED ME TO THIS!

A number of my dealer / collector friends, have admittedly, and understandably, given up trying to figure me out. In the buy-sell-or-keep habits, of the average old-stuff hustler, there are defining characteristics, peculiarities, friends and rivals find worthwhile knowing about. In our region of Ontario, in the well known District of Muskoka, dealer / collectors are always bumping into one another, especially in the off-season. This time of year, particularly, there are only so many second hand and antique venues to visit. As soon as the snow leaves, the yard sale season officially begins. Then we can spread out a bit across the landscape. Most of us consider ourselves "generalist" dealers, looking for anything vintage we can buy cheaply and flip for a wee profit. Adding collectors to the mix, who also snap up roughly the same antique items, that interest us, turns the confluence into a rapids. It doesn't mean we can't be mates but first and foremost, we're competitors. Make no mistake, it can get pretty aggressive out there on the antique and collectible hustings. Of course you already know this. For those people reading this, who are not avid collectors, and who have never been in an antique shop, it must be funny reading about our shopping fervor….our antics, stumbling over each other, trying to get the good stuff before the others. And you thought a "flying tackle" and "straight-arming," were football references. Out on the antique hustings, believe me, I've seen all kinds of wild pursuits of perceived holy grails.

My point is, each of us knows the importance of judging those folks who are competing for roughly the same collectible articles. If you were to think of it in sports terms, each of us would be an individual hockey club. The plan is to win. When skill doesn't do the job entirely, that's where wisdom and tricks of the trade enter the competition. Over the years of doing this antique hustling thing, you learn about your competitor's battle preparations. How hungry are they for a good find? Will they be able to get access to a shop's secret stash ahead of the rest of us? Weaknesses? What can we exploit? In a rush of dealers, how competent are they, getting to the best, "money" pieces first? It happens. Three of us will arrive in the parking-lot of a second hand shop, or estate sale, at roughly the same time.

You see, we just can't turn off the knowledge of "potential," and the hunch we have, that thousands of dollars could be won or lost at that particular sale……by even the slightest mistake, miscalculation or over-sight. I won't kid you. It's just about as rigorous as a hockey game, at times, trying to dance through the crowd, ahead of associate dealers. It's kind of thrilling, but honestly, I don't like getting mad about perceived and actual losses of finds, I believe, with my experience, I should have made. Touchdown passes I should have caught. Goal I should have scored. I don't mind the heated competition, and it's been a way of life for much of the past 35 years in the profession. I must admit however, I'm getting more complacent and gentle these days, with aching joints and the battle wounds of industry. Like injuries sustained, carting away huge Victorian oak sideboards, and flat-to-the-wall cupboards, and trying to fasten them to vehicles that always seem so strangely undersized. "Why do you insist on killing yourself like this," my wife asks, almost every time in a parallel circumstance. Out of breath, bleeding from some loading incident, limping from a mis-step in someone's yard, I can stand there, looking at that beautiful wood cabinet, and say…."cause it feels so darn good to make a find like this." It feels really crappy to watch a competitor drive-off, with an even nicer piece on the roof racks. Yup, it's like fishing without the river and not having a rod, in hand, buy by golly, the rush of a good find is like landing the biggest trout ever caught. Trophy material. This is what re-generates the collector in me, every time I swear off running ever again, to a succession of regional yard and estate sales. Adrenalin just shuts down the pain of old joints, and a wonky hip. I could leap over tall buildings, if there was a pine pie-safe for sale on the other side. This is my antique hunting characteristic. I'm nuts for a good find. My colleagues. They go to spring training camp, like the Blue Jays in Florida, to get ready for the yard and garage sale season. I do my training right here in the bosom of Muskoka. In fact, I never stop training. I'm even trying to get an upper-hand in the profession, by writing these regular blogs……about them. My rivals. My never-say-die competitors. Gezz, sooner or later, one of them is going start their own blog, so we can battle-it-out online.

Cookery heritage. How did I get here from over there? Any ideas? Well folks, like a lot other things in life…..it just happened as a result of everything else. Call it a comfortable "fall-out" from year's in the antique trade, and the habit I've had for years, of buying job-lots at auction sales. Not one book. A thousand books, in many, many boxes. It was while sorting through all those boxes, book by book, that a routine find, we'd make, had slowly begun to interest me, initially, Suzanne later, as both active regional historians, and as career collectors.

Inevitably, from estate and auction sales, we would find books, we purchased, had insert cards, letters, invoices, documents of all sorts, and even old hockey cards. I was able to get a half dozen "tall boy" edition hockey cards, from the original six era of the National Hockey League, of the 1960's, tucked tightly and safely into a rough looking cookbook. We also got a lot of folded-up handwritten recipes, and not just from the old cookbooks, included in our bulk purchases. Suzanne has a large collection of vintage cookbooks from her family, and friends from the Village of Windermere, on Lake Rosseau, and her family's farmstead in Ufford, a short hike to the shore of Three Mile Lake, in the Township of Muskoka Lakes. As we have a lot of cookbooks anyway, and Suzanne loves to cook…..and I love to eat (although I'm presently on a diet), we have always looked for hard-to-find recipe books on our travels, going back to our newlywed days of the early 1980's. For quite a few years, we'd remove the handwritten recipes from the old books and binders, and conserve them in a nice dry environs….actually, in several hoosier cupboard drawers and a steamer trunk, where we could find a little extra space. There isn't much space here at Birch Hollow, but I'm not a hoarder. I just collect too much stuff.

As an historian, who loves to get a hold of original journals, for research purposes, two acquisitions, especially, started to make me re-think these relics of cookery heritage. At an auction in Bracebridge, about ten years ago, I purchased a number of farm journals….written very personally, about day to day living, from the 1930's into the 1950's, (I believe), on a rural property near Barrie, Ontario. I did a lot of conservation work on the journals, to safeguard them for the future, and read them twice over because they were so incredibly interesting. First person accounts of farmstead hardships, good weeks and bad, high yields and low, crop failures and animal illnesses, strong harvests, and poor. There were stories about family members, milestone events, social encounters, guests at the house, news of accidents, local deaths, serious illnesses in the family, and accounts of bad storms and heavy snow. There were lots of kitchen-related stories, about making-do with what was available, especially during the Depression years. It was a social/ cultural historian's dream collection. I was however, suspicious, whether the owner of these books, had really thought about the content, before putting everything up for auction that day. I had many buyers interested in the collection of journals, but to clear my conscience, I felt it necessary to contact the sale host, just to make sure she hadn't changed her mind……and wanted this family history returned. Well sir, she was ecstatic to hear that the books had been found. A helper at the auction had mixed-up boxes from her mother's estate, and the box with the family keepsakes, had been put up for sale. It wasn't until a few week's later, when she was sorting through the left-over boxes, in storage, that she realized some of the remaining items had been intended for auction……and the ones that weren't supposed to be sold were missing. By her own admission, she was devastated about the loss of family records. I got them back to her, and this was a nice feeling, because they were far more important to her family, and grandchildren, than to some social historian out there. I was privileged of course, to have enjoyed the content…..although I did feel like a voyeur the whole time.

The second journal, was from the Belleville area of the province, and had belonged to a well known family, and a landmark farmstead. The details in this journal collection, which we purchased from a second hand shop, in the Village of Sutton, were not as personal as the first farm diaries, but were far more detailed in the terms of farm business, and the accounting of purchases and sales of farm goods, from around the turn of the century. What it lacked in personal diary-material, it made up for it, with a thoroughly detailed glimpse of how the farm economy fared at this time in Ontario and Canadian history. One could read into it, the successes and failures, prosperous harvests and ones that, due to weather, fell short of expectations. There was also a considerable amount of cookery heritage included, with actual recipes being attached to certain pages of the journal.

As a regular contributor of historical feature stories, to local publications here in Muskoka, I began looking at the rather large inventory of handwritten recipes with somewhat more enthusiasm. As with the farm journals, where recipes were often tucked, or folded between the pages, one could read between the lines…..and turn what seemed like only cookery directions, into social / cultural research material. There were a lot of personal and situation histories recorded in those few lines, written on the backs of store invoices, advertisements, ripped-out sections from magazines, backs of cards, letters and messages…..and on just about everything and anything that would accommodate a home-maker, writing down a passed-along recipe. This became very much the intrigue of the hunt for handwritten recipes. Not just the notes themselves, but what people wrote them on, in haste, and when there was a shortage of anything else to write on. These may have been the result of inconvenient meetings, on the street, the bus, or at the market, where one person offered another a special family recipe, and there was no supply of notepaper. These are always fun to find, and review. We've found recipes on the back of "In Memoriam" cards, death notices from funeral homes, on the backs of family photographs, on telephone message paper, grocery store sales receipts, on the backs of soup can labels, (peanut butter and pickle labels as well), on the reverse sides of automotive repair bills, phone and hydro bills, in the backs of books, and not just cookbooks. It's fascinating what was used, in a pinch, to double as notepaper, when someone else was willing to spill the beans, on a good recipe.

We also have quite a few books that were hand-made, to hold these written recipes, some dating back to the mid 1800's, originating from the so called "old country." As the District of Muskoka was settled in the late 1850's onward, with the Free Land Grants, following Canadian Confederation, in 1867, many settlers arrived in the district from Scotland, England, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Germany. They brought their recipe collections with them…..some having been handed-down from generations before this. We have recipes that were written in the "old country," and transplanted, and adjusted to life and provisions on the Canadian frontier. A lot of substitutions were necessary, to make up for what was in short supply…..particularly herbs and spices. Muskoka was generally a poor agricultural area, as far as crop production was concerned, but it was well suited to raising sheep and cattle. There is a very thin arable soil here, upon the Canadien Shiled (rock), so crops had to be adjusted constantly to the prevailing inadequacies, and short growing season. There are examples on these recipes, where substitutions have been written onto previously composed recipe sheets, tucked into folders.

I'm just glad the "historian" in me, commanded that these found recipes, discovered in the lots of books and old paper from auction and estate sales, were to be kept for some future use. It wasn't until I spent time going through the above-mentioned pioneer journals, that I took another look, at what these handwritten recipes were all about. It became so important to us, that we actually converted to cookery heritage as our number one interest…..and for once, it didn't have a thing to do with capital investment, and annual profit. We did decide to share information about our finds, in an attempt, more than anything else, to convince folks to hang onto these heritage items……when otherwise, they might have just decided to throw-out those ripped and stained pieces of paper, folded between the pages of old books. Around here, I could finally say I'd blown away the competition, because I couldn't find another soul, a dealer, collector, or any of my heritage cronies, interested in foraging old books etc., to harvest bits and pieces of old paper….for posterity's sake. Actually, I don't want them following me on this, just yet, so I'm not sharing news of our cookery-enhanced collecting interests locally……for fear, they just might find it necessary to get in my way again. You know, I'd gladly let a nice landscape painting go to a competitor now, rather than risking the loss of a book harboring handwritten recipes….., if, that is, I had to chose one direction to run at a sale, versus the other. I guarantee that the painting would be worth more than the recipes we find…..unless there are some old baseball or hockey cards tucked into the same books. In fact, these old pieces of paper don't even have an established market value, by the page, or by the pound…..at least for now. I've purchased a few bagged-up lots from local antique shops, and church fundraisers but I've never paid more than five bucks, and that included some beat-up cookbooks as well.

I have a few more insights I'd like to share with readers, about the significance of these handwritten gems of cookery heritage……over the next few blog submissions. Although we haven't had time to update the site, we do have a separate blog, to highlight our latest and best recipe finds. You can check it our by clicking on……http://muskokavintagerecipes.blogspot.com/

If you're interested in the paranormal, and the antique domain, feel free to archive-back to early January, of this year, to read some ghostly experiences we've had, as collector /dealers, with so-called, "haunted pieces" we've acquired over the decades. Have you ever wondered who owned a piece of furniture, fine china, a toy, a cradle, a rug before it came into your possession? Might it have been a tragic circumstance, or some other intense event that just happened to involve a piece or pieces from an estate…..that you now own? What about a cradle that rocks itself? A Victorian portrait that refuses to hang straight on the wall…..and stay on its picture hook? I've got a plethora of stories from over 35 years in the antique profession, that most definitely stray into the domain of the unexplained….the weird, and yes, possibly the paranormal. You can check these left of centre antique blogs, posted in early 2012, on this Hometown Advantage site. If you like ghost and related stories, you can also visit my Muskoka and Algonquin Ghost blogsite, by clicking onto………http://hauntedmuskoka.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for joining me for this blog about handwritten recipes.

You are most certainly welcome to join me again. From Birch Hollow, in Gravenhurst, Ontario, I bid you adieu.