Tom Thomson's Fire-Swept Hills 1915

What might have been going through Tom's mind when he viewed the destruction of the forest fire? His painting transformed the devastation into a thing of beauty - something that would take nature a century to rebuild. 

Sadly in the "21st Century of Fire", this painting could have been done almost anywhere in Canada. The 2001 Chisholm Wildfire started the century with a fire beyond biblical proportions reaching into the stratosphere. From "Fire Weather" a 2023 nonfiction book by John Vaillant:

"The energy released during the (Chisholm) fire's peak, seventeen-hour run was calculated to be that of seventeen, one-megaton hydrogen bombs. or about four Hiroshima bombs a minute." 

If one does just a bit of math, the destructive force of the Chisholm Wildfire just during its peak was equivalent to more than 4000 Hiroshima bombs with that measure of devastation from yet another "Great War". Few people have probably heard of the Chisholm wildfire which destroyed ten homes in rural central Alberta. People would be well aware of Chisholm if just one Hiroshima bomb had been dropped there - but 4000 is beyond the human capacity to fathom. More people are likely aware of the 2016 wildfire which torched Fort McMurray. But there have been many other fires - too many to describe here. 

Twenty-three years into the Century of Fire, the wildfire situation remains catastrophic and getting worse. A couple of 2023 headlines follow to set that stage:

"Wildland fire experts have described Canada's 2023 fire season as record-breaking and shocking. Over the course of a fire season that started early and ended late, blazes have burned an estimated 18.4 million hectares—an area roughly the size of North Dakota."

"Canada’s 2023 wildfire season is the most destructive ever recorded, and it’s not over yet. By September 5, more than 6,132 fires had torched a staggering 16.5 million hectares of land. To put that in perspective, that’s an area larger than Greece and more than double the 1989 record. Normally, an average of 2.5 million hectares of land are consumed in Canada every year. And unlike previous years, the fires this year were widespread, from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces, and the North. By mid-July, there were 29 mega-fires, each exceeding 100,000 hectares." 

Back in 1915 World War One, the so-called first "Great War" was raging in Europe as nations battled nations. Tom's artist friends had dispersed to participate in that conflict in one way or another. Tom's closest art friend, A.Y. Jackson enlisted in the Canadian Army's 60th battalion on June 14th, 1915. Soon after he reached the front he was wounded at the Battle of Sanctuary Wood in June 1916. 

Frankly, Tom was alone in the park where mankind was battling nature with similar destructive results. On the positive side, Thomson was finding his own, unique artist voice while recording the mayhem of the forest industry. Tom also painted the weather. 

Fire-Swept Hills Summer or Fall 1915
Oil on composite wood-pulp board 9 1/8 x 10 1/2 in.
(23.2 x 26.7 cm) - 1915.72, Tom's paint box size. 

Tom employed the "rules of thirds" on this small panel but this time, the sky only occupied the top of the painting. As you will see, even though the "beauty" of the devastation of the forest fire was his subject, he still included enough hints in the sky to reveal the meteorology of the day. 

The following close-up view of the top third of  "Fire-Swept Hills" reveals the details of the brushwork and the structure of the clouds. The long "dry" strokes used limited amounts of paint and arched from low on the horizon to end at the bright, front-lit cloud edge. 

The following graphic describes a low-tech and old-school approach to diagnosing lines in the sky. I actually kept a plastic pocket protector full of coloured pencils and pens in my shirt pocket. That was a practice I started at the Brockville Collegiate and Vocational School (aka High School) and it persisted through Queens University and even into the Atmospheric Environment Service, my first and only career (aside from art). One never knew when something interesting would present itself and I wanted to be ready. My wife who I met in grade thirteen, married me despite my obvious eccentricities. 

This material is unlikely to appear in any meteorological textbook. The science was the subject of frequent fireside chats within the Weather Centres concerning the forecast concerns of the day. The operational team would gather around the main weather display system and we would interactively discuss what the satellite, radar and various weather maps revealed about the current weather situation. Unknowns and uncertainties and their impacts on the forecast were assessed. Each member of the team would have a task and an understanding of what needed to get done. There were no marshmallows or an actual fire in the Weather Centre but it was still fun and creative. 

The actual atmosphere, conceptual models and satellite imagery provided the material that I present in these blogs. The techniques were essential to better comprehend the dynamic physical processes at play in the atmospheric ocean. Thoughtful analysis and diagnosis of the real atmosphere must lead to improved prognosis. Anyway, that's my story and I am sticking to it as every geek should. 

I finished my 36-year meteorological career with COMET in Boulder, Colorado and together we published a lot of the material. There was still much to do when time ran out... I guess it will never stop. The real world and nature continue to inspire. 

There is a lot of meteorology in this graphic but you need only focus on the cloud bank 
at the front edge and the anticyclonic curvature of that portion of the warm conveyor belt.

To recap, it was mid-morning and Tom was in the weather system's warm sector, looking northerly at the warm frontal cloud. He was under the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt (WCB). The cyclonic companion of the dry conveyor belt and the active portion of the cold front was approaching from the west. That veering wind shift was probably hours away as Tom was positioned on the leading edge of the warm conveyor belt and the storm. We know where Tom was in relation to the weather but the scarred landscape of the devasted forest could have been almost anywhere in Algonquin Park but was probably somewhere close to Mowat. 

The above analysis does not dwell on the contents of the fire-swept hills. Frankly, the foreground was a bit of a mysterious jumble and I dared not go there in detail. The white areas in Tom's painting could be ash, bare granite or even snow. Without some better hints from Thomson, it is impossible to know for certain. The following image of a fire-swept terrain near Kelowna in 2023 shows white rocks where no soils remain quite similar to the painting.  

I was struck by the colours in Tom's painted foreground! The front-lit nature of the scene was guaranteed. Also, it seemed that the dark lines, whether they be shadows or fallen trees stretched to the northwest consistent with the sun being in the eastern sky. 

Now for some related science about forests. Old-growth forests are vital and irreplaceable. They have essential roles in wildlife habitat, species diversity, carbon storage, and very surprising to some, the water cycle. Please let me briefly explain. 

With climate change during the Century of Fire, the importance of the water cycle is becoming even more crucial. The forests actually recycle the water deposited orographically on the mountains of the West Coast. The westerlies lose all of their moisture within just a few hundred kilometres of the eastern shores of the Pacific. Without the forests, the water cycle would end there!

Each tree in a forest transpires hundreds of litres of water into the atmosphere every day. A mature beech tree typically yields 500 litres a day. A large oak tree can transpire 150,000 litres per year (about 400 litres a day). In addition, depending on the soil, a square metre of forest can capture and store 200 litres of water. The result is that the air associated with a forest tends to be more moist and cooler - both good things in this era of climate catastrophe. 

Use your Coriolis Hand to get a sense of the circulation
by pointing the Coriolis Thumb upward at the "L" to
represent the rising air.

Air laden with water vapour is less dense than dry air and rises buoyantly. Ascending air creates a lower pressure at the surface. Air rushes in at the surface to replace the rising air and those winds are deflected by the Coriolis force. The result is a cyclonic circulation of weather. Essentially, a forest can create its own low-pressure weather system which is moved by the westlies. An intact boreal forest allows the moisture from the west coast to actually leapfrog across Canada, being recycled several times in the precipitation-transpiration process.

The burnt forest that Tom observed has had time to regenerate into an important ecosystem. Natural fire can even help to rejuvenate the forests. Many trees including the Jack pine and black spruce have serotinous cones that only release their seeds after a fire. This biology gives some species the first access to emerge and pioneer the fire-swept landscape.  

Forests inside the green outline span the width of Canada from the Rockies on the west coast to Newfoundland in the east.
Without the forests, the water supplied by the Pacific could not extend past the Rockies.

However, like so many global resources, forests and nature in general are at war with industrial society. Harvesting of the Earth's resources continues to exponentially escalate and a few individuals are getting very wealthy indeed. The unsustainable demands of an extraction-based economy will continue to undermine the delicate checks and balances of nature until something breaks. The tipping points are already falling like dominoes. Climate change and the sixth mass extinction of the Century of Fire are simply symptoms of this crisis.

"Fire-Swept Hills" as it would have
appeared in Tom's paint box.

Inscription verso: 

• u.l., in ink, Very few of Tom Thomsons / sketches were signed. but / there is no question about this / being genuine. A.Y. Jackson; 
• l.r., in graphite on torn label, MELLORS FINE ARTS / LIMITED / RA. ../ Marc.../ 19...; 
• in graphite, R. A. Mackenzie [sic] Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario 

Provenance:

• Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto Mellors Fine Arts, Toronto 
• W.P. Mckenzie, Toronto 
• R.A. Laidlaw Private Collection, 
• Toronto Sotheby's, Toronto, 6 May 1991, lot 110 
• Private collection, Toronto
•  Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario

And that is the story of Tom Thomson's "Fire-Swept Hills".  The weather only occupied the top third of the panel, but sufficient clues were still clearly hidden in those brush strokes. The weather forecast for the next day would have been readily devised in a fireside or campfire chat. The forecast for the next century was also predictable unless mankind learned how to respect nature. The science is clear:

"The long-range forecast is for a hotter climate with a fragmented, ragtag natural places with variable extreme heat and drought with the risk of fire and poor air quality."

Tom might have been lamenting the loss of the forest, facilitated by the actions and disrespect of man. The Mowat chip yard was full of the discarded remains of the Canoe Lake forest. We will never know.

Thankfully, Tom also saw natural beauty and painted those broken and burnt branches as well as the debris discarded along the way. His friend A.Y Jackson was adamant that this was a bonafide Thomson original even though it was not signed and does not bear the scars of the estate stamp. 

The takeaway good news is that if humans permit it, nature can heal itself just like those "fire-swept hills" near Canoe Lake probably have. Dramatic change must start immediately if the globe is to be saved during this Century of Fire.

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 needs to be posted. In any event, I will move your request to the top of the list. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! There is a lot of science in this small panel and I wanted to cover most of it...

PSSS: May I recommend some reading to provide background for this blog. Being informed is a prerequisite for having an opinion. Critical thought and an open mind are essential to navigating the often biased and intentionally misleading information willingly circulated by special interest groups. 

• Books by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester and author provide terrific information about trees, forests and industrial forestry practices.
• "Fire Weather - The Making of A Beast" by John Vaillant published in 2023 reveals the tragic truth about industrial society in Canada.
• "Bright Green Lies" by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbery published in 2021 exposes the hypocrisy of an industrial, extraction-based society. 

Tom Thomson's Stormy Sky Summer 1915

 Following a pattern established the previous year, Thomson headed to Algonquin Park in the spring of 1915. He arrived in mid-March and except for a guiding job between April 28th and May 19th Tom was pretty much on his own. Recall that Lassen Peak in north central California erupted on  May 22nd of that year. The volcanic sulphur dioxide and ash would colour the sky and strongly influence Tom's panels in late May. This was the stage when "Stormy Sky Summer" was painted. 

Stormy Sky Summer 1915
Oil on cardboard 8 7/16 x 10 1/2 in. (21.5 x 26.7 cm)
Tom's paint box size. 1915.68

As noted, I try to focus on the science and leave the dating to the official  Thomson catalogue raisonné.  In this case, the terrain of the northern basin of Canoe Lake was readily identifiable. Thomson preferred to spend his time painting rather than travel far to locations. This view was from just in front of  Mowat Lodge. Tom was looking east toward Hayhurst Point and the far shore of Canoe Lake. 

Now for the science. This is another skyscape with a very low horizon on the panel. The lifted condensation level of the atmosphere and the base of the prominent towering cumulus are closer to the lower line of the "Rule of Thirds" often employed to artistically balance compositions. The following graphic describes the details that Tom included in his brush strokes. 

The clouds were back-lit and darker in their optically thick central masses. The clouds were brighter on their right flanks which confirmed the easterly direction of view during the mid-morning hours of that spring day. The faint reddish tint to the clouds was the result of Rayleigh scattering of the blue component out of the sunlight during a long path through the atmospheric molecules. The sun was not yet very high in the sky. 

The red lines enclosing the billowing bubbles of ascending air are displayed using finer lines as the convection recedes upward and further to the east. The west winds at the level of the towering cumulus are dramatically different from the southerlies revealed by the low-level turbulent stratocumulus. This is the classic situation of a split cold front where the upper-level front surges ahead of the surface cold front. The following graphic explains the science visually. 

The towering cumulus clouds in the above graphic (white clouds encased in red lines just behind the upper cold front) tip forward and occur in the region between the upper and the surface cold fronts. A "croquet hoop" of rotation encloses the descending dry conveyor belt. The towering cumulus clouds are preferentially located in advance of the cyclonic companion of the dry conveyor belt - identified by the red, swirled arrow above. Using your Coriolis Hand, one can follow the sense of the rotation through the croquet hoop and the orientation of the thumb indicates whether the air is likely to be ascending or descending. Your thumb would point upward at the red swirl and the ascending air would encourage the towering cumulus clouds.  

The following graphic locates Tom within the conveyor belt conceptual model of the weather pattern. The morning sun was rising in the eastern sky. Given the overcast altostratus cloud, daytime heating was not a factor in fueling the vigorous towering cumulus. Some other meteorological forcing had to be in effect and that was the split cold front. 

A close-up view of Tom's location just ahead of the surface cold front is included below. 

Typically vigorous towering cumulus convection as Tom painted is witnessed in summer and that might explain the title assigned to this painting. As explained, such convection can also result from a split cold front that places dry and cooler air above a warm and moist low-level atmosphere. That was the situation that Tom described with his brush strokes. Given the lack of any hint of green in the back-lit forested landscape, I would also suggest that spring before the emergence of the biting insects was a more likely time for this plein air observation. Tom preferred to spend his summers fishing. 

Tom Thomson's "Stormy Sky Summer"
as it would have appeared in his
home-made sketch box. 

Based on Tom's painting, the forecast for Mowat Lodge was clearing and cooler with dry, strong and gusting westerly winds. 

Inscription recto: 

• l.r., estate stamp 

Inscription verso: 

• c. and l.l., estate stamp (stamped twice);
• c., in graphite, 1914 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1521)

Provenance:

• Estate of the artist
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1521). Purchased 1918

And that is the story of Tom Thomson's "Stormy Sky Summer".  Tom was careful to accurately record the cloud types and their specific shapes. Those facts are all that one needs to deduce the meteorology of the day from which so much more might be discovered. 

This post and most of those that follow were never included in the "Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman" presentations. The live presentation included paintings that were more exciting like thunderstorms, tornadoes and falling trees. Somehow, split cold fronts and isentropic surfaces did not make the cut - although I find them riveting!

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! There is a lot of science in this small panel and I wanted to cover most of it...

Tom Thomson's Blue Clouds, Wooded Hills, and Marshes Summer 1915

This is another one of those panels from the stack of Thomson's paintings retrieved from the Shack just south of the Studio Building at 25 Severn Street in downtown Toronto at the edge of the Rosedale Ravine. In the spring of 1918 Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald had a mountainous and virtually impossible task to sort through Tom's efforts of the previous three years. The title of this panel is certainly unique as it describes everything they saw in those brush strokes. But there is much more to the story. Please let me explain...

Blue Clouds, Wooded Hills, and Marshes Summer 1915
Oil on wood -pulp board 8 1/2 x 10 9/16 in. (21.6 x 26.8 cm)
Tom's Paint Box Size - 1915.67

Typically Creative Scene Investigation (CSI) starts with establishing the location of the plein air experience. That step is important because it establishes the viewing direction of the artist. In this case, those hills might be almost anywhere. In previous posts, discovering the exact location and time were more challenging than understanding the science and frankly, I find it exhausting. In this example, the science will uniquely establish the direction of view and the time even without knowing the location. 

The next step in CSI is to study the painting and identify everything one can see. For example, the large size of the convective elements at the horizon identifies those clouds as cumulus. If you were standing under those clouds, you would need the entire hand of your extended arm to cover up the convective elements. If those convective clouds were altocumulus (between 6500 and 20,000 feet above the surface), your thumb would block out those cloud pieces. Even higher overhead convective elements like cirrocumulus above 20,000 feet can be obscured by just the tip of the baby finger on your outstretched hand.  

The next features of particular interest were the very long and bold brush strokes radiating from a point below and to the right of the picture plane - the sun 93 million miles away. Tom was using colour and singular strokes to capture crepuscular rays radiating from the sun. The nature of crepuscular rays is described in the following graphic. They can occur at both sunrise and sunset and just require particles in the air to forward scatter light to the observer. Clouds sometimes block the direct beam from the sun thus creating a "crepuscular shadow".  The contrast between crepuscular rays of light and shadows can really make the phenomenon vivid, especially at low sun angles. 

In this case, cirrostratus ice crystals were forward scattering the light (Mie scattering) of the crepuscular rays. There were no optically thick, high-level clouds to create obvious crepuscular shadows. Notice there was also no blue sky in sight and the sky was overcast in cirrostratus. The upper levels to the left of the painting showed where the rays of the sun were not able to reach and the twilight sky of night was advancing. This is evident in both Tom's painting and the sunset photo.

The important clue that surprised me was that the left faces of the cumulus clouds were brighter than the right. How could this be if the sun was behind the horizon? There had to be a second source of light! 

The only answer to this rhetorical question is that a nearly full moon was illuminating the cumulus cloud faces. A full moon can only rise above the eastern horizon in the early evening exactly opposite to the sun is sinking in the west. The illumination of the cumulus clouds unequivocally proves that Tom was looking west at sunset and that a nearly full moon had risen in the east over his left shoulder. 

There is more to discover though. The crepuscular rays originate from well below the western horizon proving that the timing of Tom’s plein air experience was certainly after sunset. The light of the moon on the southeastern flanks of the cumulus clouds was rather white. The colour reveals that the path of the moonlight to the face of the cumulus clouds was not through a long atmospheric path. The moon had to be relatively high in the twilight sky. This fact further reveals that although nearly full, the moon was in its waning gibbous phase. A waning gibbous moon is a couple of days past full and rises before the sun has set. A waning moon is higher in the twilight sky before the sun is below the western horizon. The following graphic details the path of the light from the sun to the cumulus clouds.

Note that there is no scattering of the sunlight on its path to the moon through the vacuum of space. All of the colours of the rainbow that comprise white light would illuminate the face of the moon. That white light must pass through some of the atmosphere of the earth to reach the cumulus clouds. In this case, that path was not long enough to tint the light to the longer wavelengths of red. Rayleigh scattering of the shorter blue wavelengths out of the beam from the moon is required to shift the light to reddish shades and that was clearly not happening. 

Recall as well that after sunset, the foreground must be back-lit and void of colour.  In "Blue Clouds, Wooded Hills, and Marshes Summer" that is definitely not the case. The marsh has colours and lots of interesting shapes that Tom could see and paint in the moonlight! The waning gibbous moon sheds light on the scene as well as the cumulus. 

In addition, cumulus clouds as vigorous as Tom painted typically require a daytime of heating. The sun heats the ground which in turn warms the adjacent air. The warm air rises convectively like hot air balloons. The clouds also appear to be well aligned suggesting that some organized triggering feature was responsible for their organization. An approaching cold front would nicely explain everything Tom painted. 

Note as well that the bases of the line of cumulus clouds were very low and hidden by the distant hills. The lifted condensation level of the air mass had to be very low. This reveals that Tom was located within a warm and moist air mass which is an essential component of every mid-latitude weather system. 

These particular towers of cumulus were also tipped toward the south (left). The winds at the surface are reduced through friction while the winds aloft are relatively unhindered. The resulting wind shear encourages the towers to lean forward as they approach. 

The cirrostratus would be associated with the warm conveyor belt of the system. The cirrostratus is included in the following graphic as a white veil on the warm side of the jet stream - to the right of the flow as you look in the direction of the wind. 

The graphic above includes the likely location of Tom just ahead of the approaching cold front. The cumulus towers triggered by and organized along the cold front are the three convective clouds west of Tom. A thin veil of cirrostratus is included above the entire weather system in the graphic. 

The "cogs" referred to in the above graphic convert the wind of the jet stream into rotational energy that shapes the weather system. The red cogs rotate cyclonically and can be visualized by using your Coriolis Hand (right hand in the northern hemisphere) and pointing your thumb upward at the red "X". The fingers of your Coriolis Hand must curl in the same direction as the rotation of the atmosphere. The blue cogs rotate anticyclonically and are visualized by pointing your thumb downward at the blue "N".. These circulations are linked in three dimensions and evolve with time and the weather. See "The Theory of Unified Swirls" as well as others in that series about meteorology which are linked from that blog. Differential advection of the rotational energy by the wind causes the air to either rise or sink - and that is the very short explanation of the weather!

In any event, cooler, drier weather with northwesterly breezes was on the way for wherever Tom happened to be while painting that sunset sky. 

Blue Clouds, Wooded Hills, and Marshes Summer 1915

Tom chose not to record the waning gibbous moon rising in the east but instead was drawn to the front-lit cumulus and crepuscular rays in the sunset sky to the west. Perhaps he did turn to also observe the waning gibbous moon but not in this particular panel.

I find it interesting that blue clouds, wooded hills, and marshes are what Harris and MacDonald saw in this painting. I suppose there is a tint of blue to the sunlight reflected off the face of the moon and illuminating the southeastern flanks of the cumulus. Perhaps the blue they were referring to was the twilight colour in the cirrostratus overhead. 

Tom was possibly inspired by the double sources of illumination although all of that light must originate from the sun as explained above. We will never know for sure. I just wish that he had made a few notes about what caught his eye and where he happened to be. It would make for interesting reading more than a century later. 

There is even more to this story! This painting reminded my Thomson friend of the terrain around Whitson Lake. See "Tom Thomson's Spring Sunset, Algonquin Park Spring 1916" for a description of two paintings he did from that location. The orographic features identified in "Spring Sunset, Algonquin Park, Spring 1916" looking westward bears more than a passing resemblance to those in "Blue Clouds, Wooded Hills, and Marshes Summer 1915". The marsh is the obvious match but the hills and ridges may also be identified. The vantage for this painting would be from just a bit to the north at the red star in the following graphic. The view would be roughly between the red arrows. The unnumbered hill was just not quite high enough to reach another orographic contour. 

My Thomson friend who is very familiar with the Whitson Lake area noted: 

"Tom wouldn't have been right at the shore, as it slopes down to the water fairly steeply there, but up at the same level as the other presumed Whitson Lake sketches his view could well have been as you suggest.  One has to assume the forest had been pretty well clearcut there (which it no doubt had been).  There is a wet area back in there, and clearly at one time there was a beaver pond, but it is now just a marshy seep with a few dead tree trunks sticking up.  I wonder if it was really summer or perhaps very early fall, with some of the wetland vegetation having already changed colour to some extent.  Tom and Ed Godin would have passed that  location on their 1916 canoe trip on the Petawawa.  (The previous Whitson Lake sketches, and most likely also Bateaux, were obviously summer.)"

The preceding detail demonstrates how important it is to have boots on the ground that have travelled the same paths as Tom Thomson. The special and personal knowledge does not come easily without years of effort and research. If this painting's location was indeed Whitson Lake, then the 1915 dating is also in doubt. Similar inaccuracies have already been noted in Thomson's catalogue raisonné. The task of creating an accurate catalogue raisonné without additional information provided by the artist would be impossible. 

The more you look, the more you see and the more you find... It is vital to maintain a natural curiosity when investigating Tom's art and most importantly, an open mind. 

Inscription recto: 

• l.r., estate stamp 

The estate stamp was applied to the lower-right corner by one of the following friends of Tom.

Patron Dr. James MacCallum funded the Thomson Estate Stamp which was designed by MacDonald

Dr. James Metcalfe MacCallum
 (1860–1943)

Inscription verso: 

• c. and l.r., estate stamp;
• u.l., in ink, AM; 
• l.c., in ink, 90/10; 
• c.r., label, James M. MacCallum 90/10 and in graphite, 
• l.r., 6 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4652) 

Provenance: 

• Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto 
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4652).
• Bequest of Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto, 1944

The weather story was subtle but I do hope that you found it interesting. Thank you again Dr. MacCallum for recognizing Tom's artistic gifts and sharing them with the people of Canada. 

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!

Tom Thomson's Sunset by Lake

Following a pattern established the previous year, Thomson headed to Algonquin Park in the spring of 1915 to paint and then fish - arriving in mid-March. He travelled by train via Huntsville, where he stayed at the home of Winifred Trainor for two days. Winnie had some walls that she needed painting and she knew just the right person for that job. Apparently, he also travelled "to Tea Lake and Big Cauchon Lake; in the Kearney area. He stayed at McCann’s Halfway House."

Tom's artist friend A.Y. Jackson had returned to Quebec before April 18th, 1915 and enlisted in the Canadian Army on June 14, 1915. Tom was painting all by himself and letting the oils fly! That is how an artist really finds themself creatively. 

Between April 28th and May 19th, 1915 "Thomson and George Rowe guided the Johnston Brothers of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Pine River; they travelled to Tea Lake. On their return, Thomson and Rowe travelled to Big Bear Lake."

On May 22nd, 1915 Lassen Peak in north central California erupted, causing brilliant sunrises and sunsets. A series of other paintings establish that Thomson was busy painting around Mowat Lodge and Canoe Lake when the volcano blew. See "Tom Thomson's Sunset Sky, Spring 1915" for details of four such paintings completed around May 22nd, 1915. 

This was the stage when "Sunset by Lake" was painted. The alternate title "Sunset Summer 1915" indicates it was painted in the summer but biting bugs and Tom did not get along so I wonder if this is actually a late spring creation in mid-April after the ice went out on Canoe Lake.

Sunset by Lake
Alternate title: Sunset Summer 1915
Oil on composite wood-pulp board
8 9/16 x 10 9/16 in. (21.8 x 26.9 cm) 
Tom's paint box size

Location is a significant part of Creative Scene Investigation. There are not any obvious clues as to the vantage for this plein air work except that I believe I paddled and painted there myself. Of course, I can't be certain but Tomson probably painted there as well later in 1915. The following graphic potentially locates the vista as looking southwest at a spring sunset into Whiskey Jack Bay.  

Tom might have painted "Black Spruce in Autumn" in October 1915 from very near the same location. There would have been a convenient spot to land his canoe and to paint from a stable platform on the shore. The exact location really does not matter as this painting is all about the sunset sky and the weather. That is my painting on the lower right of the above graphic from that same location. 

Tom was painting a sunset on that evening in 1915 - and it was spring! The sky was overcast but still brilliantly illuminated by the sun that was hinted at in the upper right corner - a circle of pure white glow. The angle to that setting sun from the entrance to Whiskey Jack Bay predicts that the sun would dip below the horizon at an angle of about 270 to 275 degrees from Thomson's location. That sunset occurs in April suggesting that this is not a summer painting. Tom preferred to fish in the summer anyway.

The surface of Whiskey Jack Bay did not reveal the wave action displayed prominently elsewhere. I quite agree as my Thomson friend observes:

"Given the location and direction of view, it's not hard to believe there might have still been some ice left in the little side bay of Whiskeyjack Bay.  It certainly can persist for quite a while in some spots sheltered from the wind, sun and current, and could be the reason for the calm surface in there."

Note as well that there was no "blue" anywhere in that sunset sky! In another 30 minutes, that sun would be behind the horizon. Even though the scene was strongly backlit, the sky was still bright.  The black spruce on the nearby point and the far shore of Whiskey Jack Bay were dark and in shadow and void of bright colour - except for the dramatic cobalt blue on the spruce! Tom was having fun with his favourite colour!

The cloud types were consistent with the warm conveyor belt of an approaching weather system. The leading deformation zone was already east of Canoe Lake and thin cirrostratus clouded the blue sky. The cirrus was optically thin so that the ice crystals could forward scatter the sunlight via Mie scattering to Tom's eye. The somewhat thicker altocumulus was slightly darker in the middle as would be expected with a backlit cloud. The longer wavelength red light still penetrated through the altocumulus thus tinting that cloud orange and pink. Note that the size of the convective cumulus elements was indicative of higher clouds that were within the mid-levels of the atmosphere. 

Only one Langmuir Streak paralleling the upper jet stream was included within the scene. Atmospheric swells in the altocumulus cloud were aligned perpendicular to those southwesterly jet stream winds. The trough of these swells were cloud-free suggesting that Tom was under the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt. There was no evidence of wind-driven gravity waves embedded within those swells thus locating Tom closer to the col in the deformation zone pattern. The following graphic summarizes the weather situation from the earth-bound perspective. 

The satellite view of the same weather situation is depicted below. Tom's likely position was under the anticyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt and not far from the col. As well, Tom would have been looking southwestward at the Langmuir Streak located on the warm side of the upper jet stream. The troughs of atmospheric swells originating from far to the southwest are likely to be cloud-free within the anticyclonic companion. The cold conveyor belt (low-level blue arrow labelled CCB in the graphic) would be controlling the wind at the surface in this weather pattern. 

There was considerable wave action in Canoe Lake while the waters of Whiskey Jack Bay were calm! The lengthy easterly fetch across the northern basin of Canoe Lake would explain those waves. The significant wave action suggests that the approaching storm was strong and approaching slowly - a lot of weather was on the way and it would be wise to hunker down.  The meteorology that explains this deduction is described in some detail in "Weather Lessons for Everyone from the Cold Conveyor Belt Wizard". 

The reflection of the overhead clouds in the wave action appears to be a bit exaggerated. But I was not there so let's cut Tom some slack! He was having fun. Remember that Lassen Peak had not yet erupted (May 22nd, 1915) so these bright and unusual colours are not attributable to sulphur dioxide emissions from the volcano. 

The complete story of this painting actually started in 1914. Tom's patron, Dr. James MacCallum was a Go-Home Bay cottager. In the spring of 1914, he had invited Thomson on a camping trip up the rugged and spectacular French River and then to his cottage on West Wind Island. However, in a July 8, 1914 letter to his artist friend Fred Varley (sent from Go Home P. O., Georgian Bay, Ontario, c/o Dr. MacCallum), Tom wrote:

"I am leaving here about the end of the week and back to the woods for the summer. Am sorry I did not take your advice and stick to camping. This place is getting too much like north Rosedale to suit me — all birthday cakes and water ice etc. Will be over in Algonquin Park from about a week from today."

The numbers 2319 and 2329 locate just two of the dozens of paintings I have completed
around Parry Sound. This map shows the likely route for Tom to paddle to Rose Point
from his chance encounter with fellow canoeist, Ernest Freure. 

Paddling northward on his way to Algonquin Park, Tom encountered another canoeist, Ernest Freure, near Sans Souci. Thomson asked for directions to Rose Point but Freure invited him to stay the night on “his” island instead. That sojourn turned into five nights. Note that there is no record of Freure owning one of the 30,000 islands in the Parry Sound area. Who was going to complain if Ernest decided to adopt one - "squatting" on an unoccupied piece of land was common back then. 

Ernest Freure remembered Thomson's visit to "his" island:

"One day while we were together on my island, I was talking to Tom about my plans for cleaning up the dead wood and trees and I said I was going to cut down all the trees but he said, "No, don't do that, they are beautiful." 

Tom's estimate of a week to paddle back to Mowat Lodge via the long path through Lake Nipissing would have been very optimistic at best. Tom would not have known of his five-day delay on Freure's island when he wrote his letter to Varley. There must have been a good reason why Thomson asked his new canoeist friend how to navigate through the 30,000 islands of the world's largest freshwater archipelago to find Rose Point. That question might not have been about the camping at Rose Point but rather for the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway Station. 

Tom was presumed to have returned to Mowat by paddling up the eastern shore of Georgian Bay to the French River, up the river itself through Lake Nipissing, and into the northerly limits of Algonquin Park. Thence southward through the park to Canoe Lake and Mowat Lodge. A friend of mine from Parry Sound observed: 

"Easiest would have been to take the train from Rose Point Station which takes him across right to Algonquin Station. (JR Booth’s line that went from Depot Harbour to Ottawa)"

This is purely subjective speculation, but I believe that Tom planned on taking the train from Rose Point even as he was writing to Frederick Varley. A pleasant delay of five nights on Ernest Freure's island would still put him back at Mowat Lodge just a few days late on Sunday, July 19th. Tom and his canoe could have taken the train on the JR Booth Line in relative comfort.  We will never know for sure... Recall that Tom did not purchase his new Chestnut canoe and camping gear until late July 1915.

The Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway (OA&PS) operated from 1897 until 1959. In the early days, it was the busiest railway route in Canada. The JR Booth Line carried timber and wood products from Algonquin Park areas, as well as up to 40% of the grain traffic from the Canadian west from Depot Harbour at Parry Sound. Note the much longer distance of the canoe path up the eastern shore of Georgian Bay to North Bay on Lake Nipissing and south to Algonquin Park... a lot of paddling indeed. 

In appreciation for the visit, Thomson gave Freure this painting, "Sunset by Lake" in January 1917. Presumably Earnest would have found his way to Tom Thomson's Shack located south of the Studio Building at 25 Severn Street in the Rosedale ravine of Toronto. That shack as it appeared in 1915 is included in the graphic below along with a very interesting description by H.O. Hammond about his encounter with Tom Thomson..

Thomson's somewhat clumsy signature was a combination of chiselling his name in dry oils
and then brushing in some dark paint to emphasize the lettering. Tom certainly signed that
painting during Freure's visit to the Shack in 1917. Earnest might have even picked out his favourite
painting from the stack of panels that were stored in the Shack - awaiting the archival efforts of
Harris and MacDonald in the spring of 1918. 

Inscription recto: 

• l.r., TOM THOMSON (incised) 
• Inscription verso: (on original cardboard backing): Sunset / Presented to Ernest Freure / January 1917 / by Tom Thomson; 
• c., in red crayon, T. 52 / E. Frere; label (in red crayon), T.52, and in graphite, E. Frere Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario 

Provenance:

• Gift of the artist to Ernest Freure, January 1917
• W. Allan Manford, Toronto, 1970 Private collection, 
• Toronto Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario

And that is the story of Tom Thomson's "Sunset by Lake" - one of paddling, making new friends and of course trees and the weather. It is also a tale of a possible train ride back to Canoe Lake Station on the JR Booth line...

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! There is a lot of science in this small panel and I wanted to cover most of it...