Tom Thomson's Early Spring, Canoe Lake Spring 1917

This painting was never included in "Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman". The weather in the painting was just too subtle. The time has arrived to change that deficiency and to reveal the truth about this plein air work. The Creative Scene Investigation may surprise you. 

Early Spring, Canoe Lake Spring 1917
Oil on wood 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. (21.6 x 21.6 cm)
A rare square painting with one dimension matching his
paint box size.

As mentioned in earlier posts in this series, Tom Thomson did not stray far from Mowat Lodge during that last spring of frenzied creation. The location of this painting was about a mile north of Mowat Lodge along the road to Canoe Lake Station. Tom set up his paint box on the east side of the road just north of where it turned along Potter Creek. Tom was on a bit of a ridge looking southward. The forest had been cut down and from that vantage, Tom had a clear view toward the south and Canoe Lake.

Tom included a lot of features from the north basin of Canoe Lake and the community of Mowat as it existed in 1917. A single horizontal brush stroke suggests the roof of Mowat Lodge. The extensive chip yard from the Gilmour logging operations was devoid of features except for a blanket of snow. 

    The 1.5 mile wagon trip to Canoe Lake Station that Shannon    
Fraser made frequently to pick up perspective guests for
Mowat Lodge. 

The shadows of the naked trees in the foreground stretch from right to left. The hilly knoll even cast a shadow. With the location well established, the shadows are the sundial which reveals that the time of this plein air outing was mid-afternoon on a sunny day. Tom's friend Shannon Fraser might have even dropped him off on his way to Canoe Lake Station. There would have been ample time for Tom to complete this work while Shannon waited for the train. Tom and his simple painting gear might have enjoyed a free ride back to the Lodge in the wagon on the return trip. Tom perhaps even gifted this sketch to Shannon on the way back to Mowat Lodge. He was apt to do that with anyone expressing appreciation for his art. However it happened, Shannon Fraser did end up with this painting in his possession after Tom died. More on that story later.

But this painting was more about the weather even though the sky only occupied the top quarter of the small panel. Bold strokes with loads of paint were several inches long as they snaked wildly across the sky. It was sunny but a wall of weather occupied the horizon to the south and extended above the limits of his tiny panel. A deformation zone was certainly the boundary between the blue sky overhead and the clouds to the south. The weather situation was the leading edge of the warm conveyor melt of another vigorous spring storm. Tom had painted many such situations before but this one was different. 

The surface winds were controlled by the cold conveyor belt and Tom did not paint any clues to either the direction or speed of the surface wind. There were no low clouds to be seen. The surface wind could have even been calm as they are unconnected from the obvious violence above the warm frontal surface. 

The chaotic waves of cloud brushed in by those heavily laden and wavy brush strokes were very unlike the orderly gravity waves that Tom had observed in the past. These were "asperitas" clouds. 

I had observed and painted similar clouds several times. Asperitas clouds are typically associated with a warm frontal surface that is convulsing violently with strong winds. The stable layer of cloud looks like someone taking the blanket of the warm frontal surface and shaking the blazes out of it along with all of the moisture it holds.

Asperitas is a cloud formation first popularized and proposed as a type of cloud in 2009 by Gavin Pretor-Pinney of the Cloud Appreciation Society. Asperitas was officially added to the International Cloud Atlas as a supplementary feature in March 2017 and it is the first cloud formation added since cirrus intortus in 1951 - before I was even born! 

Warm-frontal Asperitas Clouds.
The character of the cloud tops is both out of sight and out of reach. 
Asperitas requires a stable layer in the atmosphere and wind shear. 
 A stable layer is when the air actually warms with height which is inverted from the typical atmospheric temperature profile where the air must cool thermodynamically with height. This leads to meteorologists referring to the stable layer as an "inversion" since the atmospheric profile is inverted from the norm. The greatest stability is created with warm air aloft over a cold surface layer. 

The waters of the Great Lakes and  Algonquin are cold in spring after a winter of cooling and snow and ice. Warm spring air approaching from the Gulf of Mexico also provides moisture for the clouds. The stable layer is also a warm frontal inversion in this situation. This warm air is also referred to as a warm conveyor belt. The tortured and twisted clouds are actually within the warm conveyor belt and we are looking at the bottom of the warm frontal surface. The wavelength of the cloud pattern varies directly with the wind speed - faster winds make bigger waves.

The winds that Tom was observing in the clouds were possibly being drawn into the approaching low-pressure area in the same direction as Tom's brush strokes. The winds above the warm frontal surface could have also been westerly and downstream from the deformation zone col. 

There are indeed two possible locations for Tom's weather observation separated by the col of the deformation zone that was leading the warm air from the Gulf of Mexico. The considerable cloud and wind suggest that the cyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt was the more likely candidate close to number 2 in the above graphic. The lack of thick, higher cloud preceding this wall of turbulent altostratus is unusual but a pattern I witness a few times every year. Tom was attracted to the wall of turbulent cloud approaching from the south. There was still ample sun which was required to cast strong shadows. The bank of cloud might have even been front-lit in the late afternoon.

A warming wind creates characteristic wind shear that encourages cyclonic swirls that rotate counter-clockwise. These cyclonic swirls encourage updrafts and what goes up must also come down. Backward-S shaped deformation zones (see "Cloud Edge Shapes - The "Backward S" Deformation Zone") link the cyclonic swirls. Cyclonic swirls also predominate within the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt further suggesting location 2 as the likely candidate. 

The moisture is spun in this wind shear like yarn. The clouds react in the interesting variations of shapes, colours and tones, making asperitas so darn exciting. If you are lucky enough to be under a layer of asperitas, take your Coriolis hand and those cloud patterns will make sense in terms of both updrafts and downdrafts. 

           "Early Spring, Canoe Lake Spring 1917"              
            as it would have appeared             
in Tom Thomson's Paint Box 


      

 Inscription recto: 

• l.r., TOM THOMSON. 1917. AUTHENTICATED AND SIGNED BY J.E.H. MACDONALD A.R.C.A. 1924 [or Aug. '21? (words or date indistinct)] 

Inscription verso: 

• in graphite, c., sketch of a bird with notations by Thomson, metal blue / orange / Brown, Old ivory; 
• J.S. Fraser / Mowat Lodge / Canoe Lake / Mowat P.O. Ont; u.c., label, in red pencil and below in graphite, T.37 / Geo Chubb Private collection, Toronto 

Provenance:

• J. Shannon Fraser, Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park 
• George W. Chubb, Algonquin Park and Toronto 
• Estate of George W. Chubb 
• Waddington's Toronto, 17 May 1967, lot 50
• Laing Galleries, Toronto 
• Private collection, London, Ontario, 1968 
• Heffel Auction, 26 November 2009, lot 223 
• Private collection, Toronto 

George W. Chubb with his trademark cigar.

George W. Chubb was the long-time business manager for Taylor Statten Camps. In 1912, while on a family vacation, Taylor saw Canoe Lake and had a dream. He might have even met Tom Thomson as their times at Canoe Lake overlapped. Taylor started Camp Ahmek for boys in 1921 on the northeastern shore of Canoe Lake. It was the first Canadian-owned private camp in Algonquin Park. Taylor opened an overnight camp for girls in 1924 to be run by his wife Ethel Statten. It was named “Wapomeo”, after the Ojibway term for birds of sunshine and laughter. Cubby acquired the painting from Shannon Fraser but the exact details are unknown. But I can guess..

Shannon might have acquired the painting at the Art Show at Mowat Lodge.  Tom planned to display over 60 sketches (perhaps the exact number was 62) from that last spring after dinner on Thursday, May 24th  for the Victoria Day Holiday. About 25 to 30 people were expected. Guests from Mowat Lodge (notably Daphne Crombie), the Hotel Algonquin, neighbours, guides, Park Ranger Mark Robinson and his patron Dr. MacCallum were there.  It would have been wonderful if anyone had snapped a picture of two of the event.

Of the 62 paintings that Ranger Mark Robinson recalled Tom Thomson mentioning from that last spring, only 35 appear in the authenticated catalogue of plein air works from 1917. I find it interesting that 35 plus 27, adds up to 62. And 27 is a number between 25 and 30, the number of expected guests attending the Mowat Lodge Art Show. Hmmm. The paintings selected by Daphne Crombie and perhaps Shannon Fraser were accounted for reducing the number of other unaccounted paintings to perhaps 25. 

I would imagine that every one of the 25 to 30 guests selected a free Tom Thomson painting from the selection of 62 or so on display. Free is not too much to pay. That would have still left 35 paintings for Tom's estate when he died just 45 days later on July 8th. As Daphne Crombie related to Ronald Pittaway on Friday, January 14th, 1977: " At that time, they (Tom Thomson and his artist friends who would form the Group of Seven) were terribly criticized and it was said that these paintings were alright to hang in the kitchen."

And who does not have a kitchen with available wall space to hang a Tom Thomson? The math all adds up. There might be some very lucky guests who attended the Art Show at Mowat Lodge still to be identified. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date.