Tom Thomson made a stop in Huntsville at the home of Winifred Trainor in mid-March 1916. Tom was on his way to Algonquin Park. He would stay at Canoe Lake until mid-April when he would be visited by Lawren Harris, Lawren's cousin Chester Harris and Dr. MacCallum. Tom probably painted "The Marsh, Early Spring 1916" in late March soon after arriving at Mowat Lodge. Without a hint from Tom, we will never know for certain!
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| The Marsh, Early Spring 1916 Oil on wood 8 3/8 x 10 1/2 in. (21.2 x 26.7 cm) Tom's Paint Box Size |
The topographical maps of today show a similar hill east of Joe Lake Dam but that location on Joe Creek is unlikely. Access to the west shore of Joe Creek in the early spring with extensive ice would have been problematic at best. As my Thomson friend notes: "The ice certainly wouldn't have been suitable for walking across (nor the water for paddling). Even if he had walked along the railway tracks, he would have had to do some bushwhacking through the brush and wet snow to get to that spot south of Joe Lake Dam - not easy walking."
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| Tom Thomson handling the team of horses while Shannon Fraser in the lower right looks on. Happy tourists enjoying the wagon ride to Canoe Lake Station. |
It has been suggested in earlier posts that Tom might occasionally accompany Shannon Fraser to Canoe Lake Station on the wagon - at least part way. Tom could have been dropped off at a suitable location and painted until Shannon was on the return trip to Mowat Lodge. See Early Spring, Canoe Lake Spring 1917 among others.
The accompanying graphic summarizes the investigation into the possible location of this painting - and also introduces the possibility that Tom might have included the Grand Trunk Railway line in the painting.
The shadows on the snow in the foreground indicate that Tom was standing in the shade of a copse of trees. Black spruce would have been likely as the aspen and birch would have still been naked on that spring afternoon.
The afternoon timing for this sketch is suggested by the well-developed cumulus cloud which takes several hours to develop over a landscape still blanketed by snow and ice. The sun would have an easier time warming the forests to create the warm bubbles of rising air that turn into those low-based cumuli. Tom was not standing among the trees so the long shadows also suggest an afternoon timing for this sketch although even spring shadows at high noon can be lengthy. The cloud shapes along with Tom looking toward the north-northwest indicate that the wind direction was southwesterly.
Strangely, the location of Tom in the parade of weather systems is more obvious as contrasted with his location while he painted. The fair weather cumulus shaped by the southwesterly wind is an important clue. As well the air mass was quite moist revealed by the low lifted condensation level of the cumulus clouds - perhaps less than two thousand feet above ground level. Moist air masses are typical of spring as the winter snow and ice melt.
In 1916, the jet stream was a strong current of air that directed a steady parade of weather systems across the landscape. A student of the skies could fairly easily observe the approach of each low-pressure area followed by a high. It was important knowledge when survival was closely tied to the weather. Tom was painting in the wake of such a low with the high quickly approaching.
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| The Strong Zonal Jet Stream (left) has been replaced by a meandering stream (right) in the last century. |
I used satellite meteorology and deformation zones to diagnose atmospheric blocks. Some of that research was published at COMET as part of the Satellite Palette (Title page graphic at right).
Simply, periods of drought persist within the high-pressure cell. Cloudy skies and rain prevail with a low. Topography like the Rockies on the west coast of North America encourages a persistent and strong ridge of high pressure as the jet stream is deflected northward - something I explained in "Revisiting Mountain Ranges and Conserving Spin". Downstream an equally persistent trough of low pressure can be found over eastern North America including Algonquin Park.
I digress from art but one need not be surprised. Such a dramatic change in weather and climate should be expected when mankind burns carbon that took eons to lock away within the fossils of millions of years of vegetation. The 250 years since the first Industrial Revolution is a geological blink of an eye during which atmospheric carbon has increased beyond any level measured in the last 500 million years! The graph below, published in March 2002 shows the strontium and carbon isotopic signals for the last 500 My.
The graphic to the left of the Empire State Building is a simple way to visualize the scale of geologic time. One could climb from the ground floor (or take the elevator) through all of the epochs of time (there are 37 of them). An Epoch is the smallest unit of geologic time lasting several million years each. As one progresses through time, homo sapiens first appeared only 300,000 years ago according to fossil studies. That brief time would be equivalent to the thickness of a dime on the top of the very tip of that 443-metre tall building where we are now. The time since the first Industrial Revolution would be an even thinner smear of grime on top of that dime. Just my two-cents of course.
Here are links to just a few articles concerning carbon and climate change. There are many more.
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| Tom was on the northwest side of the high-pressure area with the next weather system and warm conveyor belt still some distance to the west. |
Tom carefully signed this plein air work using block letters in the lower right. He must have been very satisfied with his work as he rarely signed anything but his studio canvases. The panel bears the scars of the wet paint smears as he slid the finished work into his paint box for transportation. I devised a system that avoids even touching the panel while painting let alone creating smears.
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| Dr. James Metcalfe MacCallum (1860–1943) |
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