Tumpline THOMSON: The man
and the mystery. PHOTO DETAIL: FRANKLIN CARMI- CHAEL / LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA / E007914169
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Canvas-Covered Mystery THE UNKNOWN FATE OF THOMSON’S CANOE
T
om Tomson is famed for his beautiful paintings of the Canadian North—scenes often painted from a canoeist’s perspective and
captured in oil. Te artist first visited Algonquin Park in 1912 and spent the next
five years becoming known for his skill with a brush as well as a paddle and capturing some of the iconic paintings we know so well today. Dr. R.P. Little once recalled, “What a horse is to a cowboy, a 16-foot canvas-covered canoe was to Tom.” As Tom Tomson lived by the canoe, he also died by it. On July
1917, his distinctive blue-grey canoe was found floating upside down in Canoe Lake. Even today, Tomson’s death remains a mystery. Suggestions range
from accidental drowning to foul play. It’s even quite possible that Tom was killed over an outstanding loan for the purchase of canoes. But what do we really know of the artist’s canoe? In a letter to Tomson’s brother, George, Winifred Trainer (reputed
to have been engaged to Tom Tomson) wrote, “…In July 1915, Tom bought a new Chestnut canoe…” From archival photos of Tom Tomson in his canoe, it appears that
the canoe is a Chesnut Cruiser or a Guide’s Special and likely 17 or 18 feet in length. What it couldn’t have been was a Prospector, since that model didn’t appear until 1923. Te canoe’s blue-grey colour was the result of Tomson’s own cre-
ation. S. Bernard Shaw says, “Te canoe was distinctive with a metal strip along the keel and painted a grey-green of Tom’s concoction.” According to Joanne Kates, “Tomson had a canoe….a graceful cedar and canvas Chestnut craft of a unique dove-grey colour, which he had achieved by adding a deluxe $2.00 tube of cobalt blue artist’s paint to a standard grey canoe paint.” Two of Tom’s paintings, Canoe and Lake, Algonquin Park and Te Ca-
noe, also included a grey canoe that was likely his own. After the tragedy, Tomson’s canoe simply disappeared. Supposed-
ly, in 1930, canoes in various condition were brought to Camp Ahmek to determine if any were Tomson’s lost canoe. None were and after- wards all were burned in an incinerator. Maybe it was left as a spare canoe at the end of a portage or sadly left to rot at a lodge. But legend has it that, through the early morning mist, you may
catch a ghostly glimpse of a blue-grey canoe gliding across the glassy surface of Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake. —Mike Ormsby
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