Tom Thomson's Ragged Pine 1916

My Thomson friend wrote: 

"There is another Tom Thomson sketch I would like you to take a look at some time - "Ragged Pine" from the spring of 1916."

There was abundant science and nature to be found in the bold brush strokes of "Ragged Pine" so I readily agreed to my Thomson friend's request.  The Creative Scene Investigation was fun and fruitful. Please read on... You might be surprised!

This is possibly the most misdiagnosed and misunderstood painting in Tom Thomson's Catalogue Raisonné. As a consequence, "Ragged Pine 1916" is also vastly underappreciated. The plein air panel is a rough and ready observation of a turbulent nature. There are no polished brush strokes - only stabs and jabs of colour and the roughest outline of shapes. So what is the real story? 

Ragged Pine Alternate title: Jack Pine and Lake,
Spring 1916
Oil on wood panel 8 7/16 x 10 1/2 in. (21.5 x 26.7 cm)
Tom's Paint Box Size

Location is always an excellent place to start in Creative Scene Investigation. My Thomson friend is a terrific resource in this regard and is extremely knowledgeable regarding the travels of Tom Thomson and his artist friends especially in 1916. 

A historical map is required to set the stage. The circled area in the wilderness of northern Algonquin is where the story of the "Ragged Pine 1916" unfolds. The tale of the "West Wind" also gets entangled. "Industrial Civilization" has dramatically altered the landscape in the last century but that is another story I will save for another blog. 

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 stayed at Canoe Lake until mid-April, then joined Lawren Harris, Lawren’s cousin Chester Harris, and Dr. MacCallum on the Cauchon Lakes for a fishing trip during the last two weeks of April. Thomson and Lawren Harris also took the opportunity to do some painting, and Thomson’s “Ragged Pine 1916” was certainly painted during this time.  At the end of the month, Thomson headed to Achray on Grand Lake to work for the summer as a fire ranger while the other three returned to Toronto.  Lawren Harris received his commission in the militia at Camp Borden on May 5, 1916. Harris was appointed to the 10th Royal Grenadiers as a lieutenant on 12 June.  

Trains were the way to travel through the Algonquin wilderness in the early 1900s - there were no roads. All of Thomson's friends could have easily reached Daventry (the yellow star) quite directly by train. After the adventure and after sketching both the "Ragged Pine" and the "West Wind", Thomson could have easily travelled from the Daventry to report to Achray for his fire ranger job. 

Note that Cedar Lake is mentioned on the above map near Brent. Brent is on the north shore of Cedar Lake just 10 miles to the southeast of Daventry; most of the lake is southeast of Brent, but there’s plenty of lake to the northwest as well. When the wind is out of the west or northwest, it’s a struggle to paddle up to the top of the lake. Little Cedar Lake (a very small lake) is continuous with and a narrowing of Cedar Lake. 

MacCallum and Chester Harris most likely returned to the city directly by train.  There is some evidence – a couple of sketches by Thomson – suggesting that Thomson and Lawren Harris may have paddled down to Brent before travelling by train from there to their respective destinations. As recorded in Ottelyn Addison's 'Algonquin Story',  fire rangers hired for the summer were expected to report for duty on May 1st, so presumably Thomson was at Achray on Grand Lake by then. The fire ranger job ran till September 30, though might be extended if the risk of fires was still high. 

As my Thomson friend summarizes:

"All of the fishing party probably arrived at the Cauchon Lakes by train, where they could arrange to be dropped off, and also picked up at the end of their outing.  It is unlikely that Thomson paddled there from Canoe Lake as some people suggest.  While that journey is not impossible, it would take several days, and even in late April there could still be ice on many of the lakes and snow on the portages." 

Historical Map showing Daventry and Thomson's possible location for "Ragged Pine 1916" looking south or southwest across Little Cauchon Lake. The yellow star locates Tom on the map and in the inset images. The inset outlined by brown dashed lines is an enlarged portion of the 1921 map. The insert enclosed by white dashed lines approximates the current Google Earth view.  As my Thomson friend observes, "It is tricky to reconcile the old map with the actual landscape.  I suspect some of the differences in the shoreline are a result of the loss of the logging dam at the outlet of Little Cauchon."

The most probable location they could have stayed was the site of a former logging camp on Little Cauchon Lake, now known as Daventry.  The camp dates from between 1910 and 1913 and was possibly also used by crews during the construction of the railway which was completed in 1915. There was a gravel pit not too far away, dating from the railway construction. The buildings were abandoned by 1916, but probably still in good enough shape for the fishing party to use. In any case, there would have been a large cleared space where they could set up tents, regardless of the condition of the abandoned buildings. (link to 1913 image of lumber camp from the Algonquin Park Archives); (link to 1914 image of engineers’ camp from the Algonquin Park Archives)  Algonquin residents who worked for the railway passed on recollections of the logging camp and a cleared area near the track bed where a ranger cabin once stood. The cabin was burnt down and no clues remain as to where exactly it once stood. 

The lumber mill identified on current Algonquin Park maps was a much later construction located close to the water and just to the southeast of Daventry. Thomson probably painted "Ragged Pine" in 1916 from the shore of Little Cauchon Lake just down from the logging camp but not as far to the southeast as the lumber mill. 

Most of the locations of Tom’s sketches completed during that trip could have been accessed by walking along the railway track from the logging camp.  However, his sketch of a person fishing at the falls on Litttle Cauchon Lake is on the opposite side of the lake from the tracks, so they must have had some kind of watercraft.  Possibly Thomson brought his canoe on the train in the baggage car – not a stretch of imagination, since it was still possible to do that at least as late as the 1970s.

      Possible painting location and view for "Ragged Pine 1916"     
 

"Ragged Pine 1916" was possibly painted looking southward across Little Cauchon Lake from the old lumber camp location now known as Daventry. 

My Thomson friend notes: "The skyline directly across from this location is pretty featureless, as in the sketch in question.  A view more to the left would show hills at Laurel Lake, and more to the right would show the hills on Cauchon Lake, both fairly prominent." 

Now for the plein air painting... The prominent trees are not pines at all but black spruce! Black spruce is the most common tree in Ontario, especially the Boreal forest. The black spruce flourishes in pure stands along shorelines and has a shallow root system. Pines generally have a wide-spreading, deep root system that reaches down into the soil- 2 to 3 times the width of the pine's drip line. Red and jack pines may have tap roots, but not always. White pines don’t have actual tap roots. Why is this important? Not all trees are equally prone to being blown done! It is important to know your trees. All will be revealed in time. 

The silhouette of a classic black spruce (middle in the above graphic) is reminiscent of what Thomson viewed and painted. Cones are produced nearly every year and may stay on the branches for up to 30 years typically massed at the top of the tree.  The shoreline at Daventry is low and damp and the perfect habitat for the definitive black spruce with droopy branches. The question should be not if a tall black spruce is likely to blow down but how is a tall, top-heavy, shallowed rooted black spruce on organic soils at the water's edge still standing? For more detailed information about the black spruce visit Natural Resources Canada Fact Sheet 39. By the way, never pitch your tent near a black spruce...

Now for the weather... Although Tom did not include the lightning in this painting, he observed the flank of a thunderstorm - very probably the forward flank downdraft of a supercellular thunderstorm. The quasi-horizontal line across the middle of the painting (not a good compositional move but that is what Tom saw) was the lifted condensation level (LCL) for the air mass. This confirms that the cloud was convective in nature. The turbulent nature and colour of the cloud face strongly suggest it to be a severe thunderstorm as well. Supercellular thunderstorms with separated updraft and downdraft regions are dynamic heat engines that can transform the heat and moisture energy of a spring day into kinetic wind energy - if the wind profile in the atmosphere is supportive. For the aspiring meteorologist, "helicity" is a vital term that can explain the necessary wind dynamics required to generate a supercell. Spring is the season for supercellular thunderstorms in Algonquin Park. Intense supercellular thunderstorms can even be dark brown or olive green in colour!

The shelf cloud at the leading edge of the forward flank downdraft is based at the lifted condensation level (LCL). The forward flank downdraft associated with the area of heavy rain acts like a cold frontal wedge (the blue cold front symbol in the graphic below) that lifts the environmental air to saturation - at the same height above the ground. The height of the LCL (meteorologists use this term frequently so it is often just denoted as the LCL) is closer to the ground in very moist air masses as Tom witnessed. A moist air mass holds a lot of water vapour and heat energy which are essential fuels for supercellular thunderstorms. 

Lines often embedded in the shelf cloud follow the direction of the rising air as shown in the above photo of an actual shelf cloud. The air at the earth's surface is not uniformly warm and moist and subtle differences result in variations in the instability of the lifted parcels when they reach the LCL. These surface disparities result in updrafts of greater and lesser instability apparent as lines in the shelf cloud. Tom did not include these lines in his painting but he was looking through the screen of the black spruce and could not see those lines even if they were present. 

Here is how the weather played out. Imagine a calm, humid and sunny morning in late April. The sun is required to charge the atmosphere with heat energy. A cold front was probably in the process of crossing Lake Huron. The towering cumulonimbus and thunderstorm anvil would have appeared first on the southwest horizon early in the afternoon. Frequent but distant lightning would have been the next clue that a supercellular thunderstorm was approaching. The thunder would have become audible when the storm got within 20 kilometres of the camp.  The shelf cloud might have been around 5 kilometres away when Tom decided to pick up his brushes. The gales and white caps arrived with the gust front when the shelf cloud was nearly overhead. The painting includes the fury of the storm and almost includes the thunder but the shelf cloud was the only definitive clue of the meteorology to be seen in the oils. Tom accurately painted just what he saw!

The subtle "T" in the above graphic denotes the preferred location of a tornado under the updraft region of the supercellular thunderstorm. Conditions with the forward flank downdraft can be severe enough but can get much worse under the underdraft region - the so-called "bear cage" of this type of convection. 

The motion of the supercell thunderstorm itself is added to the storm-relative vectors in the above graphic. Typically Algonquin supercells track northeasterly at speeds of 80 km/h or greater. This velocity vector would augment the southwesterly winds of the forward flank downdraft. The passage of the forward flank downdraft wind would indeed be " a wild rush of southwesterly wind across the lake" as also observed and commented on by Lawren Harris.

The Beaufort Wind Scale applied to the wave action on the lake indicates that the winds were certainly gales (Beaufort Scale 8) and probably higher. Damage from winds typically starts at speeds of 48 knots which is Beaufort Scale 10 Storm Force Winds. Trees get blown over by storm-force winds - especially the common, shallow-rooted black spruce of the Boreal Forest.  

The real story of "Ragged Pine 1916" is that it was actually a beat-up, tall, shallowed-rooted black spruce and not a pine at all. Tom was observing the approach of a severe thunderstorm. The wind speed as revealed by the large white caps on the lake was at least gale-force but probably stronger with wind gusts exceeding 90 km/h. The thunderstorm was still approaching so conditions were about to get much worse. 

Plein air painting conditions would have been far from ideal that afternoon. The lightning would have been frequent with lots of negative strokes but probably intense positively charged flashes as well. The blustery wind would have made it a challenge to control the brushes and hang on to the paint box at the same time. The goal would have been to capture the moment with as few brush strokes as possible. There would neither be the time nor the opportunity to polish the brush strokes or mix colours on the palette. No one has really figured out how to paint "sound" but Tom came close to including the thunder in this ragged sketch!

Here is where the other story and very likely, the truth begins. My Thomson friend mentioned the following:

"It seems possible that this could be the West Wind sketch that MacCallum talked about in his tale of Tom out painting in a storm and having a tree fall on him.  If so, it was probably done on Little Cauchon Lake at a location on the north shore now identified as Daventry.

I have long been suspicious of MacCallum's version of the event. Harris told essentially the same story, but didn't identify the sketch, which seems odd to me. The West Wind sketch, on which the studio painting of the same name was based, doesn't show any sign of trauma or haste in its execution, while Ragged Pine certainly seems to qualify on both counts. If the direction of view is as I speculate, it would be southward across the lake, so a west wind would be blowing from right to left, which is indeed indicated by the whitecaps on the lake in the sketch."

I could not agree more! When I wrote "Tom Thomson's West Wind and the Weather" I was quietly concerned that the Beaufort Scale Number 7 - Near Gales (28–33 knots 32–38 mph 50–61 km/h) would not be nearly enough to knock down a tap-rooted pine - very unlikely indeed. I was troubled as well that the brush strokes should appear so polished and the colours so "pure and clean" while painting under the severe weather conditions that both MacCallum and Harris described. 

Dr. MacCallum's version of the "West Wind" follows - or was he remembering the creation of "Ragged Pine" from more than twenty years before?

“It may interest you to know... that the West Wind was done at Lake Cauchon. Thomson, myself, Lorne [sic] Harris and his cousin Chester were up there. It was blowing very hard and Lorne Harris was painting farther up the shore. The wind blew down the tree of the picture and Harris first thought that Thomson was killed, but he soon sprang up, waved his hand to him and went on painting.”

Letter from Dr. MacCallum to Miss A.L. Beatty, Secretary to the Curator of the Art Gallery of Toronto, dated 14 May 1937. (Library, Art Gallery of Ontario). 

Dr. MacCallum started telling this tale at least as early as 1921 as evidenced by another letter mailed to the director of the Albright Gallery in Buffalo claiming that the West Wind was painted at Cauchon Lake. The content of that letter was very similar and some of the text follows: 

“It may interest you to know that the decorative pine in the foreground was blown down on Thomson just before he had finished the original sketch”, later adding that Harris thought Thomson had been killed, “but he sprang up and continued painting”.

Lawren Harris would not likely have seen MacCallum's personal letters to either the Albright Gallery or the Art Gallery of  Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario, the AGO). Lawren recalled:

“I remember one afternoon in early spring on the shore of one of the Cauchon lakes in Algonquin Park when a dramatic thunderstorm came up. There was a wild rush of wind across the lake and all nature was tossed into a turmoil. Tom and I were in an abandoned lumber shack. When the storm broke Tom looked out, grabbed his sketch box, ran out into the gale, squatted behind a big stump and commenced to paint in a fury. He was one with the storm’s fury, save that his activity, while keyed to a high pitch, was nonetheless controlled. In twenty minutes Tom had caught in living paint the power and drama of storm in the north. Here was symbolized, it came to me, the function of the artist in life: he must accept in deep singleness of purpose the manifestations of life in man and in great nature and transform these into controlled and vital expressions of meaning.”

The Canadian Historical Association, Report of the Annual Meeting, Volume 27 No. 1 1948, The Group of Seven in Canadian History

The story of the "Ragged Pine" is summarized in the above graphic, superimposed on a current Algonquin Park Canoe Routes map. The yellow star locating the painting location is purely a guess on the lakeshore in front of the unknown location of the logging camp mentioned above. The logging camp was probably not far from Daventry Station. Tom would have certainly heard the thunder of the approaching storm and then witnessed the shelf cloud on the southwest horizon. He picked up his paint box as reported by Harris and ran to the shoreline to crouch behind a large stump. Tom painted the shelf, the black spruce and the colour of the cumulonimbus within 15 minutes as the gust front approached. The shelf cloud was overhead when the tree blew down in front of him. A few more stabs of paint and the observation of the tree and weather were done. 

Tom had to be near the shore as indicated in his sketch and thus west of the railway tracks. The black line on the map is the portage to Loxley Lake – some portages follow old tote roads/winter roads from logging days, so this portage might possibly have been associated with the logging camp. But as my Thomson friend asserts, we will never know for certain.  

My Thomson friend continues:

"I think we can make a case that there is really no conflict between MacCallum’s and Harris’s accounts.

MacCallum was quite likely not with Harris and Thomson when they were out painting in the storm, but heard the story later, i.e. back at camp. The wording of his account in the letter does not indicate he had direct experience of the event. Possibly he didn’t see the sketch at the time or didn’t remember it clearly if he had. He acquired the West Wind sketch from Thomson’s estate, and perhaps associated it with the windy day on Little Cauchon if he did not recall the Ragged Pine sketch. His letter to Ms Beatty was a private communication and it is unlikely that Harris would have seen it.

Harris’s account clearly indicates he was on the spot when Tom Thomson did the sketch, and, being an artist himself, he would certainly have been able to recall the image and its expression of the storm’s turbulence. On the basis of that memory, he likely would not have associated it with the West Wind (although he may well have been familiar with at least the studio version of the West Wind)."

As mentioned in "Tom Thomson's West Wind and the Weather", there was great uncertainty about where the sketch for the West Wind was actually painted:

• Apparently, Tom had personally told Winnie Trainor that the sketch had been completed at Cedar Lake in the north of the Park. As mentioned above, Brent is on the north shore of Cedar Lake just 10 miles to the southeast of Daventry. Travelling upstream from Brent, Cedar Lake narrows and one passes through Little Cedar Lake into the current Aura Lee Lake (formerly known as Laurel in 1916). A 345-metre portage takes you into the current Laurel (formerly Aura Lee in 1916). A 130-metre portage then takes you into Little Cauchon Lake. Winnie's story regarding the painting of the sketch for the "West Wind" on Cedar Lake would be consistent with the fishing trip that produced "Ragged Pine 1916". 
•  Dr. James MacCallum mentioned Lake Cauchon as the site for the sketch of the West Wind but he may have been referring to the painting "Ragged Pine 1916" as suggested above. Alternatively, Dr. MacCallum might have been mistaken as to the name of the actual body of water where the sketch of the West Wind was completed. Tom mentioned Cedar Lake to Winnie and Tom would have likely been very accurate with the sparse details that he did happen to share about his art. Confusing the names of the lakes as perhaps MacCallum did would be totally understandable. 
• Ranger Mark Robinson claims that the original sketch for "West Wind" had been completed at Achray on Grand Lake and that Tom had offered the sketch to him. This particular story is quite suspect given that Mark Robinson's military service started in the spring of 1915 and he did not return to Canoe Lake until April of 1917. The opportunity to see the April 1916 sketch for the West Wind and to have Tom gift it to him would have not been possible.

The stories from Harris and MacCallum are essentially the same. Indeed, aside from the mention of the "West Wind", Dr. MacCallum's letters originated with Lawren Harris. Of course, no one will ever know for certain but the evidence does point in the direction suggested.  Thomson was painting "Ragged Pine 1916" during the severe thunderstorm and not the "West Wind" in MacCallum's story. That ragged tree that might have blown down nearly killing Tom was actually a shallow-rooted black spruce and not a pine at all - but only MacCallum mentions a tree falling.

In addition, Harris mentioned that "Tom and I(Harris) were in an abandoned lumber shack" before "the storm broke". We will never know if the group was staying in the lumber shack or whether the shack was different from the logging camp. MacCallum's version says that "Harris was painting farther up the shore" and not in the logging shack during the thunderstorm. Oh my, but there are still some inconsistencies... and we will never know but that is still fine, we were able to discover a lot about the painting anyway. 

In the spring of 1918, Lawren Harris or J.E.H. MacDonald would assign the name "Ragged Pine 1916" to this sketch of a black spruce. They did their best and were certainly swamped by the number of paintings and the lack of any supporting information. The Thomson Estate Stamp was applied to the panel and they thought that was the end of that story. Thankfully Tom painted what he witnessed and the truth can still be revealed more than a century after his untimely passing. Also, thank goodness for the keen eye and unparalleled detective skills of my Thomson friend. 

Inscription recto: 

Tom Thomson's "Ragged Pine 1916" as it would 
have appeared in his paint box.

• l.l., estate stamp

Inscription verso: 

• c., estate stamp; c., in graphite, A; l.r., 670
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg (1970.1.2)

Provenance:

• Estate of the artist
• Roberts Art Gallery, Toronto
• R.A. Laidlaw, Toronto
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg (1970.1.2). Purchased with funds donated by R.A. Laidlaw, 1969

I find it puzzling that Robert A. Laidlaw, the wealthy friend of Lawren Harris would donate the money to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in order to purchase this painting from his own collection. The family fortune was made from the "R Laidlaw Lumber Company" which established The Laidlaw Foundation in 1949. The purpose of the Laidlaw Foundation was to provide financial support for charitable, conservation, educational, and cultural organizations in the Ontario region. I am clearly not a tax lawyer and remain somewhat perplexed.  

There is even some more to this story! The Creative Scene Investigation of "Moonlight" revealed that it was most likely painted on the full moon evening of  Tuesday, April 18th, 1916 while Thomson was on the fishing trip with his artist friends. The moonlit weather depicted in that sky was the altocumulus portion of the warm conveyor belt of a strong and slow-moving spring storm. The wave action that Tom recorded could have only been produced by an easterly cold conveyor belt wind of Beaufort Force 5 - 28 to 39 km/h.   Such storms are classic producers of spring supercellular convection - just like that observed in "Ragged Pine 1916". The circumstantial evidence is convincing that this painting was completed during the afternoon of Wednesday, April 19th, 1916. 

A very special thanks to my Thomson friend for sharing this story which I feel is the whole truth. Tom would approve - after all, art is all about making special memories.  An honest observation even made in just twenty minutes can continue to inspire for generations… that is the meaning of art and life. Paint on!

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. 

PSS: Should you wish to have Creative Scene Investigation applied to one of Thomson's works that I have not yet included in this Blog, please let me know. It may already be completed but not yet posted. In any event, I will move your request to the top of the list. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! 

PSSS: If you made it this far, you deserve something extra. A search of "Canadian Income Tax History" yields some curiously interesting facts. In 1969, when Mr. Laidlaw gave the cash to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, there would have been the usual sort of income tax deduction for a donation to a registered charity (which no doubt the McMichael was).  Income tax on capital gains (i.e. the difference between what he paid for the painting and what McMichael paid him), did not come into effect until 1972.  Since the sale was made in 1970, Mr. Laidlaw would not have had to pay any income tax on that difference.  

Considering the increase in value of Thomson's works over the years, the personal profit could have been quite a considerable capital gain for Mr. Laidlaw.  Also, since the two transactions were made in different taxation years, there would have been no obvious connection between them. Mr. Laidlaw certainly did very well financially out of that little maneuver.  His tax advisors probably foresaw the upcoming legislation on taxing capital gains, as apparently, the proposed legislation was in the works for quite a while before it was finalized and became law... something politicians would have been certain to widely advertise.

Note that Tom Thomson plein air sketches typically sell for $1.5 million dollars or more in 2023 - and that price is certain to keep going up. Tom never saw a thin dime of the millions made from his art changing hands as a commodity. Some things never change. Tom created art for the love of the natural world... all the rest is simple greed at the expense of nature. Just my honest opinion of course.