Tom Thomson's Sketch for "The Drive" Fall 1916

At first glance, people might wonder where the weather can be found in this painting. The bright, front-lit overcast altostratus sky does not contain much detail. Stratus clouds do not resemble anything but an elevated layer of fog in the sky. 

Sketch for "The Drive"
Alternate titles: Jam?; Log Drive?; The Jam?; The Log Drive?, Fall 1916
Oil on composite wood-pulp board 8 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (21.6 x 26.7 cm), 
Tom's Paint Box Size, Catalogue 1916.102 

But there is a tremendous amount of science within these brushstrokes - displayed right before the inquisitive eye. I can't make it through a day without thinking about the Coriolis effect. A search of my blogs will reveal many such references attempting to explain what we experience every day. One of my favourites is "The Solution to Cloud Swirls Can Be Found in Your Hands".

Simply, we live on a globe that spins cyclonically. The shallow layer of atmosphere is not attached to anything. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) is the zone of interaction between the atmosphere and the spinning Earth. A frame of reference attached to the Earth is a non-inertial frame. Humans always like to think they are the centre of the universe but clearly, that is not now or ever the case. Humans are always non-inertially accelerating and attached to the spinning Earth. This explains why I studied the weather from a frame of reference attached to the moving air but that is another, very long story for another day. 

Humans have invented some ingenious fictitious forces to help us understand what we observe in any fluid on the Earth. The Coriolis and centrifugal forces actually appear real from our non-inertial vantage. Employing these forces allows us to better understand our existence on a spinning globe. 

Let me very briefly explain. 

At the poles where the Coriolis effect is the maximum, point your Coriolis thumb upward (your right thumb for the northern hemisphere and the left thumb for the south pole). Your fingers must curl in the same sense as the rotation of the Earth. The Coriolis force is zero at the Equator. 

Now imagine that you are at the North Pole. At the North Pole, every direction is toward the south. Release balloons with a "southward" push. Any direction will do! Within the atmospheric frame of reference, the balloon must continue moving in a straight line. From our vantage, we rotate cyclonically attached to the Earth and the ballon appears to be deflected to the right. The Coriolis force is used to explain that deviation. The Coriolis force deflects any moving object cyclonically. With the palm of your Coriolis Hand facing up and the fingers pointing in the direction of the moving objects, the Coriolis thumb must point in the direction of the Coriolis deflection. The Coriolis force can be used to explain the highs and lows of pressure systems in the atmosphere. Supposedly, one could apply these techniques on any planet to understand the swirls and whirls of the fluids - something I have yet to do. 

After gunpowder was invented, it was discovered that the Coriolis effect had to be considered if you wanted to come close to hitting something with your canon at shooting distances of 1,000 metres and beyond. 

At what distance does Coriolis take effect?

Studies in North America have shown that most people tend to turn right upon entering a store. Whether that is because of the Coriolis force, driving habits or because most people are right-handed is unknown. Regardless, stores are designed to consider this deflection steering people to the right and supposedly keeping them in the store and spending money. It is not clear if shoppers in the Southern Hemisphere turn left.

If a walker does not have a distant goal point in sight, for instance in a thick fog, their path will drift consistently either to the left or right, eventually bringing them around in a circle back to the area where they started. Are lost hikers in the northern hemisphere more likely to steer to the right? Do lost walkers south of the equator turn to the left? 

Cyclonic swirl down the drain... 
The swirls can develop naturally but
can be made to go either way
"with a bit of a push". 
Try the bathtub as well. 

Is the flow deflected in the kitchen sink? The flow is inward and disappears like a low-pressure area in the atmosphere. One would expect the swirl to be cyclonic and it often is! Is it just a random direction of circulation or can Coriolis deflection still play a role even at that minuscule scale? Hmmm...

Regardless, Tom painted what he saw! The logs were deflected to the right coming out of the sluiceway. Did the loggers intentionally direct the logs cyclonically as they came out of the dam? Did the logs just naturally deflect to the right? Was it perhaps just the current and the contours of the river that controlled the motion of the timbers? Maybe the loggers had learnt that it was easier not to resist the natural Coriolis forces? It might be effortless to push the logs to the right consistent with the Coriolis effect to get the logs further downstream.

In "Tom Thomson's Abandoned Logs", the astute reader might have noticed that the so-called "abandoned" logs were all jammed up on the right side of the current looking downstream. Was the location of the pile of logs a coincidence or perhaps the Coriolis force? Maybe that collection of "abandoned" logs was not the result of the current and Coriolis force making a pile six logs high on the west bank at all - maybe it was a "landing". 

A Thomson friend correctly identified that tall pile of logs as a "landing". A log landing is a place where trees and logs are gathered and sorted during a logging operation for further processing and transport. The lumbermen were certainly not done with that collection of valuable timber. Would really clever lumbermen always position a landing on the right bank of the river looking downstream? The Coriolis force can even explain this!

A current that is always being deflected to the right by the Coriolis force would tend to chew away at that bank of the water course over the years. The granite of the Canadian Shield makes for a difficult "chew" but a soil-based shoreline is easier to digest and erode. If I am paddling along a river with an earthen shore, I always look for the deeper channel on the right side going with the flow. Just wondering if the lumbermen would play the same probability. Hmmm....

These musings are intended to be interesting and maybe amusing. I offer no definitive answer. The Coriolis effect is important at 1000 metres but at what shorter distance is that cyclonic deviation still noticeable? On a personal note, I tend to deflect to the right but I am dyslexic and right-handed and obviously not a reliable observer. Hmmm....

I did not convince my Thomsom friend either: 

"Have to admit I would never have thought of interpreting that sketch in this way.  That said, I don't really buy the Coriolis theory of how the logs are moving below the dam (apologies for raining on your parade).  There is a strong flush of water through the sluiceway that hits the calmer water and creates a lot of turbulence, hence logs bobbing up and down and in some cases being momentarily vertical.  Once that hits the widening of the waterway downstream of the dam, everything spreads out.  It looks as though the right shore (all rights and lefts in these comments will be from the viewer's point of view) is fairly close to the flow, which would tend to push things to the left.  Also, we don't know what the contours of the bottom might be, or what effect that might have on the circulation. The water is high enough to intrude into the trees on either side of the widening, which probably adds to the confusion.  The logs in the foreground are mostly just floating there in the ripples spreading out from the turbulence, and waiting for the loggers to push them into the central current and on their way downstream.

 I don't think the definitive research has yet been done.  Anyway, all entertaining to think about how nature works"

Clearly as described in "Tom Thomson's Abandoned Logs", the torrent of water flowing through the sluiceway of the dam identifies this as a spring painting. Thomson was observing the work of the loggers using the spring meltwater to get the logs downstream and to market. This was a spring painting and not the fall of 1916!

The large dam possibly recorded in "Abandoned Logs" was located downstream (east) of Carcajou Lake, at the outlet of a significant widening of the creek. The landing for the "abandoned logs" would have been about 100 metres downstream from the dam on the west bank of the muddy and rocky shore of Carcajou Creek. Tom was looking northwesterly with the large hill in the distance for both "Abandoned Logs" and the sketch for "The Drive". 

Map maker Jeffrey McMurtrie has produced some terrific and educational maps ideal for hiking and canoeing in Algonquin Park Please visit "Maps by Jeff" for the most recent version. This map of Carcajou Creek is from Version 5 of that continually improving series. 

It would have been a short stroll of only 100 metres (from the end of the 110-metre portage) for Tom to get to the location immediately south of that dam to record the sketch for "The Drive". The loggers would have been busy directing the logs through the sluiceway. The original wood dam from 1916 rotted away long ago but the forested hill and the rocks that were once used in the dam are still there. 

When Tom was on location making a plein air observation, he painted pretty much what he saw. Artistic licence can take over in the Studio to move subject matter around. Even so, it is interesting to note that the basic bones of the sketch can still be found in the larger studio composition. 

Tom added some front-lit patches of altostratus cloud in the studio version of "The Drive" but the hill and the basic shape of the painting remain unaltered. Even the location of the three loggers is identical between the two works. 

Also, note the conspicuous stab of blue paint within the tangle of logs in the middle at the bottom of Tom's sketch for "The Drive".  

Harris and MacDonald did their best but these paintings were in the spring of 1916 and not the fall of 1916 or even 1915. The studio version of  "The Drive" was completed in the Shack during Tom's final winter of 1916-1917. 

The Drive, Alternate titles: Drive, South River; Log Chute; The Log Chute, Winter 1916–17, Oil on canvas, 47 1/4 x 54 1/8 in. (120 x 137.5 cm), 1916-1917.17

The studio painting "The Drive" may be seen as part of the University of Guelph Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph, Ontario Agricultural College. It was wisely purchased with funds raised by students, faculty and staff in 1926.

“Abandoned Logs” and  “The Drive Sketch”  were even possibly painted on the same day in the spring of 1916 after his fishing trip during the last two weeks of April. Thomson painted some masterworks during that holiday with Lawren Harris, Lawren’s cousin Chester Harris, and his patron Dr. MacCallum. Thomson would have then had some free time in the Grand Lake area before his forest ranger job got busy.  

Thomson could easily record a dozen panels a day. On that day in May 1916, Tom could have recorded  “Abandoned Logs” with the first light at sunrise. It would have been natural to be Coriolis deflected to the right and follow the western bank of Carcajou Creek to the north. Tom would have encountered the lumbermen hard at work sending more logs downstream to the landing recorded in “Abandoned Logs”. The altostratus skies were consistent. The cold front would have gone through and a brisk west to southwest wind would have made for pleasant painting conditions. Of course, I was not there and no one will know for certain - bit it seems very plausible to me. Hmmm... 

Note that the Estate Stamp was only applied to the back of the Sketch for "The Drive" panel. There is no evidence that it was applied either in the lower right or lower left of the front of the panel. I wonder why? 

There were a large number of alternate titles: Jam?; Log Drive?; The Jam?; The Log Drive?, Harris and MacDonald did not really know what to make of this sketch. They definitely got the timing wrong as the fall of 1916 - it was painted on a day in May 1916 when Thomson was in the Grand Lake area getting ready to become a forest ranger.  

“The Drive Sketch” as it would have appeared
in Tom's paint box. The “Abandoned Logs”
would have been in the next slot behind
the current sketch. 

Inscriptions verso: 

• c., estate stamp; 
• l.r., estate stamp; 
• u.c., in graphite, TT58; 
• u.l., in ink, AM; 
• l.c., in graphite, No 59 Mrs Harkness Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario 

Provenance: 

• Estate of the artist Elizabeth Thomson Harkness, Annan and Owen Sound 
• George Thomson, New Haven, Connecticut and Owen Sound, Ontario, 
• 1937 Mellors Fine Arts, Toronto, 1937 
• Laing Galleries, Toronto, 1970 
• Private collection, Toronto 
• Thomson Collection @ Art Gallery of Ontario

This painting went to Thomson’s eldest sister upon his passing. Elizabeth's husband was Thomas “Tom” J. Harkness who was appointed by the Thomson family to look after the affairs of Tom’s estate. T. J. and Elizabeth lived in Annan, Ontario, just east of Owen Sound. From Elizabeth, aka "Mrs. Harkness", the painting went to her older brother George Thomson and hence into the world of galleries eventually ending up as part of the Thomson Collection at the  Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) where I first saw it - nose to nose. 

The Lord Thomson of Fleet

By the way, the Thomson Collection was the most significant private art collection in Canada. Ken Thomson gifted 2,000 outstanding works to the AGO. The collection features signature works by Canadian artists from the 19th to mid-20th century, with some 300 works from the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson.

Ken Thomson was a Canadian/British businessman and not any relation to Tom. At the time of Lord Thomson's death in Toronto on June 12, 2006 at the age of 82 years, he was listed by Forbes as the richest person in Canada and the ninth richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately US $19.6 billion.

Thank you again to my Thomson friends for bringing history to life and making it fun. I certainly learned a few things during this adventure. Life is good!

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: Have you ever taken a nap after lunch in a reclining swivel chair with a footrest - maybe even just pretended to snooze. Do you get a sense of rotation and if so, which direction is the rotation? I rotate cyclonically. This is not definitive proof in any sense, just a sensation. Leave me a comment if you feel so reclined.