The Canadian painter Tom Thomson died on 8 July 1917, on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park in Nipissing District, Ontario, Canada. After Thomson drowned in the water, his upturned canoe was discovered later that afternoon and his body eight days later. Many theories regarding Thomson's death—including that he was murdered or died from suicide—have become popular in the years since his death, though these ideas lack any substantiation.
Thomson stands tall as a figure in Canadian art. His later work has had a profound influence on both the artists contemporary to him as well as those coming much later. Paintings such as The Jack Pine and The West Wind have taken a prominent place in the culture of Canada and are some of the country's most iconic pieces of art. In addition to his prominence as an artist, he has developed a reputation as an ideal Canadian outdoorsman, proficient in canoeing and fishing, though his talents in the former have come to be doubted.
Background The outdoorsman
Though he is most known for his painting, Tom Thomson is often mythologized as a veritable outdoorsman. He was taken out of school at an early age, possibly due to a lung condition. This afforded him time to explore wooded areas and develop a deep appreciation for nature. He spent much of his time on walks with his grandmother's first cousin, Dr. William Brodie, a well known entomologist, ornithologist and botanist. He similarly developed a love for both fishing and hunting, though he eventually gave up hunting after shooting a deer "as the look in its eyes was too human."
Dr. James MacCallum contributed stories to Thomson's image as an outdoorsman, including one story that Thomson encountered a large wolf who, after sniffing him briefly, left him alone. He further wrote,
Thomson has often been remembered as an expert canoeist. David Silcox has argued that this image is likely romanticized. A. Y. Jackson wrote that Thomson "paddled like an Indian," holding his abilities in high esteem. Despite this, Park ranger Mark Robinson said that Thomson admitted to him in 1913 that he did not know much about canoeing. In addition, there are multiple stories of him capsizing. In 1912, after hearing that Thomson had capsized and lost most of his supplies on a canoeing trip up the Mississagi River, friend John McRuer replied saying, "You might have been drowned you devil; and that was not the first time you were bumped, eh!"
Despite these romantic images, an area that Thomson was no doubt proficient in was fishing. The deep love of fishing he developed while young remained for his entire life, so much so that his reputation through Algonquin Park was equally divided between art and angling. While most who visited the Park were led by hired guides, Thomson moved through on his own. Indeed, many of his fishing locations appear in his work. Upon visiting Canoe Lake for the first time in 1914, A. Y. Jackson wrote to J. E. H. MacDonald, "It appears that Tom Thomson is some fisherman, quite noted round here."
1917 sketching season
From 1914 onward, Thomson regularly traveled to Algonquin Park in the spring, either camping on Canoe Lake or staying at the Mowat Lodge hotel. He spent his time there sketching and working as a fishing guide, returning to Toronto in the fall, producing larger canvas works from his original sketches. In 1917 Thomson returned to Canoe Lake at the beginning of April, arriving early enough to paint the remaining snow and the ice breaking up on the surrounding lakes. The paintings became his own visual diary of the day, morphing into a series that he described as, "a record of the weather for 62 days, rain or shine, or snow, dark or bright." He wrote home to his father saying that, though he had not sold many sketches that year, that he thought he could "get along for another year at least while I stick to painting as long as I can." In his final letter to MacCallum — sent only one day before his disappearance — he complained of flies and mosquitoes. He had not done much sketching since they emerged, but was hopeful the warmer weather would soon kill them off. He promised to send along some of his winter sketches and was looking forward to sketching on several trips planned for the next two months.
The works he completed over this spring display the masterful control of colour he had come to develop—especially apparent in a painting like The Rapids—and are painted with a particular "crispness and freshness." His sketches in particular show how he matured into "a subtlety of expression, using a brisk but delicate handling." The bold and expressive brushstrokes that he is now famous for are evident in paintings like Path Behind Mowat Lodge and Tea Lake Dam. Also on display in the former are small areas of bare wood panel, visible through the paint. This device further adds to the lighting of the scene. The aggressive style of painting Thomson utilized was seen consistently in the Expressionist movement that followed his death. His final works have been described by art historians David Silcox and Harold Town as moving in the direction of abstraction. This is especially evident in what is perhaps his final work, After the Storm, which, "When viewed up close, Thomson's thick, broad application of paint in this landscape melts into pure abstraction." The landscapes of his final works in late spring and early summer often contain these types of bold, generalized forms.
Besides the deep love he had come to develop for Algonquin Park, Thomson was beginning to show an eagerness to depict areas beyond the park and explore other northern subjects. In a May 1917 letter to his brother-in-law, he wrote:
A. Y. Jackson suggested Thomson would have traveled even further north, just as the other members of the Group of Seven eventually did.
Death On the morning of 8 July 1917, Thomson was seen walking to Joe Lake Dam with Shannon Fraser, the owner of the Mowat Lodge. He often spent his night there when the park proved too cold for camping. Mark Robinson, a park ranger, noted in his diary that Thomson "left Fraser's Dock after 12:30 pm to go to Tea Lake Dam or West Lake." Thomson disappeared during this canoeing trip on Canoe Lake. His upturned canoe was spotted later in the afternoon, while his body was discovered in the lake eight days later on 16 July. His watch had stopped at 12:14 and he had a four inch bruise on his right temple.
The body was examined by Dr. Goldwin Howland who concluded that the official cause of death was drowning. The coroner, Dr. Arthur E. Ranney, supported Howland's conclusion that the drowning was accidental, further writing that "the evidence from the other six witnesses points that the cause of death was drowning." Regarding the four inch bruise on Thomson's temple, he wrote that, "no doubt, [it] was caused by stricking some [obstacle], like a stone, when the body was drowned."
The day after the body was discovered, it was interred in Mowat Cemetery near Canoe Lake. Under the direction of Thomson's older brother George, the body was exhumed two days later and was shipped to Owen Sound. It was re-interred in the family plot beside the Leith Presbyterian Church on 21 July in what is now the Municipality of Meaford.
With financial assistance provided by MacCallum, on 27 September 1917 J. E. H. MacDonald, John William Beatty, Shannon Fraser, George Rowe and local residents erected a memorial cairn at Hayhurst Point on Canoe Lake, where Thomson died. Because of Thomson's deep love for the area, the Group "had not the heart to go back to Algonquin Park, so they moved to Algoma and Lake Superior, and then to the Arctic, Yukon, Labrador, and other parts of the country."
Legacy
Since his death, Thomson's work has grown in value and popularity. Scholar Sherrill Grace has written that Thomson is a "haunting presence" for Canadian artists and that he "embodies the Canadian artistic identity." Group of Seven member Arthur Lismer similarly wrote that "Tom Thomson is the manifestation of the Canadian character."
In 2002, the National Gallery of Canada staged a major exhibition of his work, giving Thomson the same level of prominence afforded Picasso, Renoir, and the Group of Seven in previous years. As of 2009, the highest price achieved by a Thomson sketch was Early Spring, Canoe Lake (1917) which sold in 2009 for $2,749,500 (). Few major canvases remain in private collections, making the record unlikely to be broken. One example of the demand Thomson's work has achieved is the previously lost Sketch for Lake in Algonquin Park (1912/13). The painting was discovered in an Edmonton basement in 2018 and went on to sell for nearly half a million dollars at a Toronto auction. The increased value of Thomson's work has led to the discovery of numerous forgeries of his work on the market.
In the summer of 2004 another historical marker honouring Thomson was moved from its previous location nearer the centre of Leith to the graveyard in which Thomson is now buried. The grave site has become a popular spot for visitors to the area with many fans of Thomson's work leaving pennies or small art supplies behind as tribute.
In 1967, the Tom Thomson Art Gallery opened in Owen Sound. In 1968 Thomson's shack from behind the Studio Building was moved to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg. Numerous examples of his work are also on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario. Thomson's influence can be seen in the work of later Canadian artists, including Emily Carr, Goodridge Roberts, Harold Town, and Joyce Wieland.
An "untainted" artist In the years since his death, Thomson has often been described as being independent of previous artistic traditions. Many have pointed to the fact that he never visited Europe or museums in the United States as evidence that he managed to avoid the developments of Modernist experiment. Thomson's lack of formal art education similarly caused the other members of the group to later see him as a natural, untainted artist, and this view has entered the myth and public perception surrounding him.