Tom Thomson's Early Spring in Cauchon Lake, Spring 1916

Location is typically vital if one wishes to really appreciate the motivation of the artist. Tom Thomson left behind no clues except for his brush strokes. Tracking the location of his paintings a century later is not for the faint of heart. The changing forest alters its character in far less time and often hides the more permanent rocky landforms. Even boots on the ground and paddles in the water might not be able to confidently locate THE place. Tom Thomson experts never stop trying though. 

Such is the case with "Early Spring in Cauchon Lake, Spring 1916". The title is specific only because Lawren Harris was with Tom when he created this work. Harris was also at least partly responsible for sorting through the stack of panels salvaged from Thomson's Shack. He and J.E.H MacDonald had taken on the challenge of trying to construct the original catalogue raisonné of Thomson's art in the spring of 1918. They had also planned to pull out the best work and use those panels to illustrate the genius of their friend. 

Early Spring in Cauchon Lake,
Alternate title: Algonquin Waterfall, Spring 1916,
Oil on wood, 8 3/8 x 10 1/2 in. (21.2 x 26.7 cm),
Tom's Paint Box size, 1916.57

My Thomson friends offer the following observations regarding the painting before delving into the search for the location:

"Some thoughts on the sketch itself.  If the sketch is indeed spring, it appears that there is still some rotten ice on the water between the foreground and the hill.  The white stuff on the hill could be interpreted as remnants of snow or maybe bits of ice from meltwater re-freezing.

 Spruce trees on the hill are plausible.  Budding hardwoods - maybe.  Some of the foreground verticals are red, like some of the bushes that like to grow next to the water.  It does appear that there are red something or others on the small saplings/bushes in the foreground - maple flowers maybe?  The red stems in the foreground could be dogwood which produce a rather striking shade of red in the spring and fluorish in such wet conditions.  

Almost impossible to tell.  It doesn't look as though the non-conifer vegetation is on the hill, just in the foreground."

I fully concur. Maple tree flowers are among the first to appear in the spring. Dogwood bushes are also colourful! The alternate title of "Algonquin Waterfall" possibly based on the slanted white stroke in the middle is quite misguided for many physical and scientific reasons... oh my...

I could not resist including the musings regarding the channel of open water in front of the cliff. If the cliff was facing southward, the sun heating the rocks would be sufficient to explain that open water. A northern exposure would require a current. Without a definitive painting location, one can't be certain. 

My Thomson friend continues:

"The really tricky bit is the background.  One could interpret it perhaps as a red sky, though it is awfully dark and monotone for that explanation.  Possibly the actual background was all dark vegetation, and he used the contrasting colour to give the hill some form.  The whole sketch is relatively dark, and a background of solid conifers would have made it much less interesting.  Perhaps he thought he would do something different with it later.  Perhaps he wasn't quite finished when he had to return to camp.  We can speculate, but, as usual, it remains a mystery.  Anyway, it is a striking work."

It was probably Harris who added the following to the back of this panel:

"Background is a high hill covered with budding hardwood & a few spruce."

The description of the background as a mainly deciduous forest in the spring is quite plausible. A sky which is that dark in tone and unusual in colour would be very scary indeed and unlikely even for the most severe spring supercellular thunderstorm. The illumination of the landscape is not strong suggesting that the sky was overcast. Cloudy skies and showery weather are typically associated with the cold low type systems that frequent Algonquin in spring. There was sufficient light to bring out the colours of the spring foliage but otherwise, the scene is dark and perhaps dreary. 

The takeaway message from the sketch requires:

• a location with a rocky cliff
• a rock face with at least a partial northerly exposure;
• a background of a high hill with a deciduous forest to the right of the rock face; and 
• a rocky shore to paint from. 

The Thomson experts whom I call friends, were indeed challenged to locate "Early Spring in Cauchon Lake, Spring 1916". They scoured the lake and discovered the following four possibilities. 

The location "A" match must accommodate Thomson's acknowledged penchant for expanding the compositional shapes in the vertical in order to best fill the tiny panels. More details follow in the accompanying graphic. 

Hillside "A" is angled southeast to northwest at an angle of 307 degrees. That rock face would only receive a few hours of solar radiation in the early morning given a late April sunrise azimuth of 74 degrees. The exposure of the rock face is toward the north-northeast at an angle of 37 degrees. 

The hillside of Location "B" has an easterly (85 to 90 degree) exposure to the morning sun. The sun rises shortly after 6 am in late April. Location "B" would be exposed to the morning sun for a longer period than location "A".

In all of the following graphics, the black arrow links to the white viewing arrow and depicts the angles for each of the four possible rocky cliffs. The small yellow star on the black arrowhead locates Tom's probable painting location. The associated red letter identifies the location of the respective rock face. 

The following map locates the possible painting locations A and B. Location A would have the rock face angled toward the west-northwest away from Thomson.  The forested western shore of Little Cauchon Lake would have been visible in the distance to the right of the rocky shore.   The shore in the B location is oriented more north-south and the distant forest would not have been visible from Tom's painting location.  Overall, this supports location A as the best guess (of these locations, anyway).  Certainly, A would receive the least sunlight and thus would retain some bits of snow and ice longer than at B.   The current in Little Cauchon flows west to east and perhaps there is a bit of an eddy into the bay at location A.

Locations "C" and "D" are just a short paddle downstream from "A" and "B" and are described below. 

The rock face in C faces directly west. The afternoon sun and the warmer temperatures during that part of the day would have been conducive to melting the snow and ice with that exposure. There would have been no distant forest visible to the right of the rock face.

 The rock face "D" displayed in the following graphic faces south. The snow and ice would be the first to melt away in such an exposed location. The northern forest shore of Laurel Lake would have been visible from that painting location. 

My Thomson friends feel that location "A" is the most convincing so far. A passionate Thomson expert is always on the hunt and these blogs are living documents as more details are discovered. 

Given these four possible locations, I agree with my Thomson friends and prefer site A for the following reasons:

• the rocky cliff faces toward the north-northeast and would only receive the early morning light
• the forest western shore of Little Cauchon Lake would have been visible from that painting location and would explain the reddish-brown background
• the rocky foreground in the photo is consistent with that in Tom's painting

As with almost everything associated with Tom Thomson, the lack of information and details left behind ensures that we will never know for certain. 

The estate stamp in the lower right of the painting did result in some paint eventually flaking off. 
The panels salvaged from The Shack and organized in the Studio building all display the stamp.

As mentioned previously, Harris was fishing with Thomson when this painting was completed. Harris added some details that he remembered from that experience on the back (verso) of the panel when he and MacDonald were sorting through Thomson's works in the Studio Building. Apparently, they felt that this plein air panel was "1st class". I recall seeing this painting up close and personal and quite concur with their evaluation. 

Inscription recto: 

• l.r., estate stamp

Inscription verso: 

• c., estate stamp; 
• in graphite, Petawawa (crossed out) Cauchon Lake; 
• in graphite (Lawren Harris?) Early Spring. / Background is a high hill covered / with budding hardwood & a few spruce.; 
• in graphite, lst class; in ink, 
• Property of Harkness; in graphite, 100 M. Thomson
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg (1972.4)

Provenance:

• Estate of the artist
• Elizabeth Thomson Harkness, Annan and Owen Sound
• Margaret Thomson Tweedale, Toronto
• Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Smith, Winnipeg
• Private collection, Toronto
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg (1972.4). Anonymous gift, 1972

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 Tom's youngest sister Margaret and then into private collections before being anonymously gifted to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection where I first saw it - nose to nose. 

Remember that all Creative Scene Investigations are century-old "cold cases". There will always be more facts and truths to discover with continuing research. The files remain open for them all… but the case of "Early Spring in Cauchon Lake, Spring 1916" is more open than most. Perhaps the exact rocky cliff with the high hill behind has yet to be identified. 

Further investigation will require more boots on the ground and paddles in the water not to mention open minds and good science. History can be rediscovered and brought to life if we only try.

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. 

Tom Thomson's Algonquin Park, Spring 1916

 TT-127- Tom Thomson's Algonquin Park, Spring 1916

Creative Scene Investigation is often made possible with the knowledge of exactly where the painting was completed. Typical unknowns like the direction of view, season and time of day might be easily deduced knowing the location. An accurate knowledge of Tom's movements in time and space helps greatly as well. Without this information, there are otherwise just too many unknown variables within the equation making an accurate solution and a better understanding of the motivation of Thomson quite impossible!

Maps By Jeff  is a terrific resource for anyone wishing to enjoy the wonders of Algonquin

The story behind  "Algonquin Park, Spring" begins in mid-April 1916. Tom Thomson was on a fishing trip with friends Lawren Harris, Lawren’s cousin Chester Harris, and Dr. MacCallum on the Cauchon Lakes. Cauchon Lake (upper left) is upstream from Little Cedar Lake (lower right) in the above map of the area by Jeff. 

Algonquin Park, Spring 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, 1916.67

"Algonquin Park, Spring" might have been completed when everyone was enjoying their time away from the big smoke of Toronto. It could have also been painted when just Tom Thomson and Lawren Harris were making their way down to Brent and the railway station. The train connections from Brent would take Lawren via Toronto to report to Camp Borden. My Thomson friend notes:

"The Grand Trunk train from North Bay passes through Algonquin Park with a stop at Brent on its way to Ottawa. Harris would have changed at the Ottawa Central Station to the Canadian Northern train which would take him to Toronto. Bot the CN and CP trains north from Toronto have spur lines to Camp Borden."

Harris is recorded as receiving his commission in the militia on May 5, 1916. Thomson was due to start his summer of fire ranger duty at Achray around May 1st. 

This is where paddles in the water and boots on the ground become an essential part of Creative Scene Investigation (CSI). My Thomson friends might have located the island that Tom painted in Little Cedar Lake. The painting location would have been a comfortable place to sit on the edge of the train track that runs along the eastern shore of that lake. The viewing angle would have looked southwesterly across a narrow section of Little Cedar Lake. The following graphic links some of the shapes in Tom's 1916 painting with the landforms of almost a century later. Trees will grow and die but rocks stay pretty much unchanged. 

Nine unique, rocky shapes can be matched more or less between the painting and the current terrain. The orientation of the forested slope (the green dashed lines above the forest) in the painting and behind the island a century later are identical but that line is far from unique and not included as proof. Tom was noted for painting almost exactly what he saw so the similarities between the sketch and the island should not be surprising. I am convinced that the island on Little Cedar Lake is the correct match but there is more to be discovered through Creative Scene Investigation. 

 

The illumination of the island is the next important clue. Was this a sunrise or a sunset painting? The reddish colour of the lighting indicates that Rayleigh scattering had removed the blue spectrum out of the direct beam from the sun. The light was passing through a long atmospheric path for Rayleigh to have such a significant impact. 

The solution requires knowledge of the location of the island and the timing of the painting. Both of these are approximately established and allow the following diagnosis as described within the graphic. The timing of sunrise and sunset and the azimuth angle to the sun can be calculated if we know the latitude and longitude and the approximate date. 

From the orientation and angle analysis, Tom might have been exaggerating the extent of the sunset catching the western flanks of the white pines... but maybe not if our approximations are off by just a bit. Of course, the painting would take perhaps thirty minutes to complete and the lighting can change a lot in those last seconds before twilight. 

And now for the weather! I consulted with my colleague Johnny Met and these are his observations based on a lifetime of experience as a weather observer. 

"Hi Phil. The first time I looked at the painting, I thought it was just a white background. I switched over to my laptop on a bigger screen with better resolution. The background of the blue sky is now visible. It looks like the artist painted the sky blue and switched to white  and painted streaks lightly, which to me signifies overrunning cirrus cloud and is meant to be just the background. The lonely island is the main picture of the painting. It seems to me the island has been around for hundreds of years.  There are  many life cycles of trees growing up and then dying. The setting sun is behind the scene which makes the other side so sharp. Johnny Met."

Years of experience are required to see the subtleties of the sky that Johnny Met observed. Recall that backlit cirrus is translucent to sunlight - never dark in the centre as with more opaque cloud types. The darker purples and bold brush strokes on Thomson's sky are consistent with the presence of ice crystals distributing the incident light in a forward direction (Mie scattering) toward the artist. 

"Cirrostratus coming at us" should be the phrase that pops into your mind when cirrus is observed in a sunset sky. Refer to "The Main Veil of the Weather Dance - The Warm Conveyor Belt" among other posts in "The Art and Science of Phil the Forecaster". A warm conveyor belt associated with a springtime mid-latitude synoptic scale weather system was on the way. It could have even been a cold-low type system which is typical for spring in Algonquin. Cold lows can bring at least a couple of days of chilly, wet and very unsettled weather - just as they did in 2024.  

The warm conveyor belt typically approaches from the southwest over Algonquin Park. Lines of cirrus would parallel that flow. The science of these cirrus lines can be described using Langmuir Streaks (see "Langmuir Streaks – Take the time to Observe and Learn from Nature"). If the top of the warm conveyor belt was stable which is typical at the top of the atmosphere (the tropopause), gravity wave cirrus bands (see "Lines in the Sky and the Meaning of Life") would develop perpendicular to that flow. Tom might have let the subtle cirrus lines in the sunset sky determine the direction of his brush strokes. I have highlighted just a few of those strokes... there are many more. 

Tom was apparently quite pleased with his sunset weather observation. He uncharacteristically signed the painting in the lower right. It is difficult to discern what means he used to carefully achieve the small letters so accurately on that small panel. Was it a fine brush or perhaps a lead pencil he used? Was the paint still wet when he did so? 

My Thomson friend observes:

"Looking at his brushwork in many sketches, it appears he mostly used only one size of brush or two at most.  A thin brush with just enough paint on it, turned sideways, could have done the lettering.  I'm sure he didn't carry along anything he didn't need."

A microscopic examination of the original signature would provide answers to those questions. 

Regardless, "Algonquin Park, Spring 1916" was included in the tall stack of panels moved from Thomson's Shack to the Studio Building in the spring of 1918. Lawren Harris and J.E.H MacDonald had assumed the gargantuan task of trying to organize Thomson's work of the past five years. They applied the estate stamp above and to the right of Tom's signature as faintly revealed in the above graphic. 

Inscription recto: 

• l.r., estate stamp; 
• l.r., TOM THOMSON

There are more details to be found on the back of this panel. Some of these numbers are unintelligible without any explanation included. There is probably no mystery about the numbers though. Some might just be annotations from an exhibition when the work was on loan.  Acquisition numbers from galleries are included as well. Some text designate which ones MacCallum or someone else wanted as the panels were being sorted in the spring of 1918. For example, "RAL" refers to wealthy businessman Robert Laidlaw whom Lawren Harris had encouraged to purchase Thomson’s paintings. "J+H" certainly meant something to someone but is too cryptic for me to decipher!

Inscription verso: 

• c., estate stamp; 
• in graphite, 1916 Algonquin Park / J. MacCallum; 
• RAL; 
• in red, 19; 
• in graphite, J+ H; 
• grey paint stuck to the back; 
• on the stretcher, in graphite, 10 Algonquin Park MacCallum
• Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (857)

Provenance:

• Estate of the artist
• Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto
• Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (857). Gift from the Reuben and Kate Leonard Canadian Fund, 1927

Apparently, Dr. MacCallum was determined to have this painting within his collection of Thomson's art regardless of what Robert Laidlaw wished. See the Thomson paintings that were once within the Laidlaw Collection here.  The good doctor apparently sold "Algonquin Park, Spring 1916" to the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1927 which is where I recall seeing it during one of my many visits. 

Many interesting stories can be discovered with boots on the ground, open minds and good science. History can be rediscovered and brought to life.  I continue to learn from the Thomson experts who have become my friends over the years!

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. 

Tom Thomson's , Aura Lee Lake, Spring 1916

The painting "Aura Lee Lake, Spring" begins in mid-April with the story of Tom Thomson on a fishing trip with friends. Tom was joined by Lawren Harris, Lawren’s cousin Chester Harris, and Dr. MacCallum on the Cauchon Lakes for some creative time away from the big smoke of Toronto. 

They fished and painted for a couple of weeks. MacCallum and Chester Harris most likely returned to the city directly by train.  There is some evidence suggesting that Thomson and Lawren Harris paddled down to Brent before travelling by train from there to their respective destinations. Thomson was due to start his summer of fire ranger duty at Achray on Grand Lake around May 1st. Harris had to report to Camp Borden, where he is recorded as receiving his commission in the militia on May 5, 1916. On 12 June, he was appointed to the 10th Royal Grenadiers as a lieutenant.

This Thomson sketch could have been done on an outing from their camp on Little Cauchon Lake or during a pause in the paddle down to Brent. In 1916 what was known as Aura Lee (or Lea) Lake is now known as Laurel Lake. What was called Laurel (or Laurie) Lake in 1916 is now known as Aura Lee Lake. It is easy to get confused but the following graphic detailing the name swap with actual maps should assist. 

The first map below of Algonquin National Park in 1893 was only meant to be an approximation of the waterways. The overlay in pale blue is the current lake system from "Maps by Jeff". 

The next Lands and Forests map from 1921 does a better job of recognizing the broader expanse of water. The two separate lakes were yet to be resolved and were known collectively as Aura Lee Lake as it was known in Thomson's days.  

The yellow arrow links Pincushion Island on both the old and new maps.

Map technology has improved greatly in the last century as demonstrated by the progressively more accurate and detailed maps below. Thomson would have loved using the "Map by Jeff" to plan his fishing trips. Jeff's maps are available at "https://mapsbyjeff.com/pages/algonquin". Although potentially confusing, the above steps needed to be taken to correctly identify Thomson's painting locations. Otherwise, the Thomson experts would have been looking at the wrong lake. 

The campsite in the middle of Laurel Lk identifies Pincushion Island

One reason for completing a Creative Scene Investigation of this painting is because the location was mentioned in previous posts. In the Catalogue entry for "Yellow Sunset" 1916 (1916.37) currently at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4684), the Inscription verso states 

: another sketch, possibly of Aura Lee Lake in spring; u.l., in black crayon, 74

The actual back (verso) of  "Yellow Sunset" is depicted on the left side of the following graphic. The only inscriptions found on the painting "View from the Top of a Hill" are the "black crayon, 74" as mentioned and the National Gallery acquisition information in tiny letters on the bare wood on the right side of the panel.

The idea that "View from the Top of a Hill" was "another sketch, possibly of Aura Lee Lake in spring" is only found in the "Tom Thomson Catalogue Raisonné, Researched and written by Joan Murray".  The comment is not written on the back (verso) of  "Yellow Sunset". 

The Creative Scene Investigation "Tom Thomson's View from the Top of a Hill 1916" conclusively proved that the painting was done on the "big hill" overlooking Grand Lake, Stratton Lake and Johnston Lake.  There was also a lot of interesting science and history to discover from both sides of that panel. 

There is no listing for "View from the Top of a Hill" in the official Tom Thomson Catalogue Raisonné. It is included solely as the back (verso) of  "Yellow Sunset"  with a link to an "Additional" image of "View from the Top of the Hill".  A search of the Catalogue Raisonné for "View from the Top of a Hill" yields no results although it can be found on the website of the National Gallery of Canada. 

The "View from the Top of a Hill" is on the left; to the right is "Yellow Sunset".

Together on a single wooden panel, the two paintings included in the above graphic comprise a wonderful story of natural history and art. For the complete story, the titles of each link to the respective Creative Scene Investigations. 

The art historians apparently thought that "View from the Top of the Hill"was just "another sketch, possibly of Aura Lee Lake in spring".  It also appears that they deemed "View from the Top of the Hill" not to be worthy of inclusion in the official Tom Thomson Catalogue Raisonné.  

The author and contributors to "Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman" wished to correct some errors and set the official record straight with regards to "View from the Top of the Hill". This painting found on the back of "Yellow Sunset" should not have been dismissed. This also explains why "Tom Thomson's Aura Lee Lake, Spring 1916" is the subject of this Creative Scene Investigation. 

The Thomson experts come to the rescue again. Thomson did paint at Aura Lee Lake in the spring of 1916 and the panel is on record to prove it. 

"Aura Lee Lake (now known as Laurel Lake) is the next lake downstream from Little Cauchon. The season appears to be spring, so this sketch probably was done during the April fishing trip to the Cauchon Lakes. The location could have been accessed by either paddling or walking (with a bit of rugged bushwhacking) from Little Cauchon. The area had obviously been clearcut, so getting to the spot would not have been impossible. Or, Thomson and Harris could have paused there on their way to Brent at the end of the fishing trip.

In either case, Harris could have been with Tom.  There are another couple of paintings by Harris that are dated 1916 and at least one has Algonquin in the title.  Since he returned to Toronto after the fishing trip and took up duties at Borden, I don't think it's likely he returned to the Park again that year (or ever), so anything of that sort from him in 1916 is almost certainly from the fishing trip.  Of course, as usual, we will never know for sure."

Aura Lee Lake
Alternate title: Spring Aura Lea Lake Spring 1916
Oil on wood panel 8 7/16 x 10 1/2 in. (21.4 x 26.7 cm),
Tom's Paint Box Size,
Catalogue 1916.55

Lawren Harris could well have been painting with Thomson when Tom painted “Aura Lee Lake”. The graphic below contains three Harris paintings from Algonquin and probably that April fishing trip. 

Note that there is a Laurie Lake near Thunder Bay but not in Algoma.

Like Thomson, Lawren Harris also painted what he saw. Maybe the small unnamed island in Laurel Lake (below left in the photo), is the island that Harris painted in "Island in the Lake, Algonquin Park, 1916".  That small island is labelled as "Harris Island" in the following graphics.

My Thomson friends have located the painting site for Tom Thomson's Aura Lee Lake as identified in the following graphic. The features on the topographical map are identified in Thomson's painting. Features were typically stretched vertically to better fill the small panel - something that Thomson routinely did. 

The island on the right, labelled Laurel Island, was known as Pincushion Island, at least in the mid-1940s. The red four-point star locates a probable location for Harris's painting of "Harris Island" but that is another story and I digress... again. 

The forest had been clear-cut in the early 20th century. The trees are still recovering but now have grown enough to completely block the view from Thomson's painting location. 

Clearcutting of forests dramatically changes the landscape. The trees may have recovered somewhat in Algonquin within the last century but a functioning habitat takes longer to be restored. Pictorial images of the impacts abound but again, that is another story. The accompanying image from British Columbia depicts the continuing logging of old-growth forests. Sadly, some of that biomass is being burnt just to produce electricity. The destroyed ecosystem will take thousands of years to replace.

Tom typically expanded the vertical in his paintings as a design technique in his plein air paintings. See "View from the Top of the Hill" for another similar example. 

I reached out to my colleague Johnny Met for his opinion on the sky. A lifetime of observing the weather is an important resource. 

"It is an early morning sky, maybe a little after sunrise. The visibility is really sharp.  The hills stand out as if there is a fresh brand of air maybe behind a retreating cold front. The sky looks wind-blown with lower cumulus fractus broken up by the wind, moving them across the picture from the northwest. A middle altocumulus layer and a higher cirrus layer that is white with blue sky seen through it. The surface wind is developing with small ripples on the lake blowing away from the artist indicating a westerly surface wind. I imagine the day will be a windy, chilly day with broken stratocumulus and small intervals of sunshine."

Tom was looking east-northeast. The westerly low-level winds increased with speed and veered to the northwest at cloud level.  The multiple layers of cloud and the strong winds are characteristic of a cold low weather system which are most common in the spring of the year. Cyclonic rotation extends through a deep layer of the atmosphere. Cold lows move slowly, especially in the cold trough which is a favoured weather pattern over eastern Canada. The science behind the cold trough and atmospheric circulations are described in more detail in "The Jet Stream - The Bind that Ties" as well as many other posts. Bands of thicker clouds and showery weather rotate around cold lows like spokes on a wheel. Cold lows make for challenging forecasts. As the name implies, they generally produce unpleasant painting conditions for the plein air artist. 

The following water vapour image of the above cold low system but a couple of days later is a good proxy for the weather Tom observed. The clouds shaped by the northerly winds over Aura Lee Lake on that spring day would be very similar to the view from the ground under the exiting cold low in April 2024. It also provides an excellent illustration of the weather that Tom painted in "View from the Top of a Hill 1916" with the cold low exiting on that eastern horizon to be followed that evening by "Yellow Sunset"  and the next system approaching from the west. 

Thomas Wesley McLean [1881-1951] would acquire this painting, probably from Thomson himself. McLean (sometimes spelled MacLean) was instrumental behind the scenes to start Thomson on his painting career and to point him toward Algonquin Park.  

As early as 1901 McLean was travelling in northern Ontario in his summers as a fire ranger or prospector. He took several trips with his friend Neil McKechnie whose tragic end came in the rapids of the Mattagami River. During one of those summers, McLean discovered Algonquin Park. McLean told stories and showed sketches of his experiences to his fellow workers at Grip Limited. 

Thomson's first trip to Algonquin was in May 1912. Thomson was 34 years old at the time and to quote John Denver's song (Denver was 27 years old in 1972 when he wrote "Rocky Mountain High" ),

"He was born in the summer of his 27th year

"Coming home to a place he'd never been before".

Harry B. Jackson's  Letter to Blodwen Davies dated May 5, 1931 described Thomson's Algonquin trip.

"I am quite sure it was Tom's first visit to Algonquin Park. Tom MacLean a Toronto artist who was located with us at the Grip, gave us a letter of introduction to the elder Mr. Bartlett, who was supt. of the Park at that time:

MacLean (sic) told us of the beauty & fine fishing in that region & Tom & I thought we would try it. […]

Tom did get his painting outfit in the spring of 1912 & used it on our trip & afterwards with Broadhead; While we were together he did very little serious sketching, making a few notes, sky lines & color effects."

JEH MacDonald (1873–1932) was also an artist at Grip Limited and widely acknowledged as one of the country’s best designers. MacDonald was invited by his artist friends to design the cover for a booklet entitled "A Gathering of the Arts", which celebrated the initial meeting of those friends to discuss the formation of a club in 1908. A short while later he designed the first list of Club executives and an official crest "The Arts and Letters Club".

Tom McLean was also a Charter member of the  Arts and Letters Club and invited Arthur Lismer to join. Lismer met Lawren Harris and AY Jackson at the Club. Dr. MacCallum was the president of the Arts and Letters Club from 1916 to 1918. 

MacDonald introduced his coworker Tom Thomson to Dr. James MacCallum, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Toronto. MacCallum visited the Ontario Society of Artists exhibitions and was particularly interested in landscape paintings. Just over a year later, in the fall of 1913, MacCallum introduced Thomson to A.Y. Jackson. 

Tom Thomson was never a member of  "The Arts and Letters Club" but did show some of his art there. 

Upon some investigation, Tom McLean was a vital thread between the personalities who would lead Thomson to Algonquin and his meteoric 5-year burst of creativity - even if he did not realize or appreciate it himself. Encounters can be serendipitous and McLean's involvement would lead to the "Algonquin School of Art" in 1914 and then to the Group of Seven in 1920. History can be created from the simplest of circumstances... but I digress...

Ben Jackson (1871–1952) another Thomson colleague and artist from Grip Limited wrote:

Tom Thomson Rainy Day in Camp -
By H.B. Jackson at Tea Lake Dam,
Algonquin Park, May 1912 painted
on Tom's first trip to Algonquin

"Tom was never understood by lots of people, was very quiet, modest and, as a friend of mine spoke of him, a gentle soul. He cared nothing for social life, but with one or two companions on a sketching and fishing trip with his pipe and Hudson Bay tobacco going, he was a delightful companion. If a party or the boys got a little loud or rough Tom would get his sketching kit and wander off alone. At times he liked to be that way, wanted to be by himself commune [sic] with nature."

Tom would paint "Aura Lee Lake" and perhaps some of his finest works on just such a fishing trip with Lawren Harris in the spring of 1916. Some potential masterpieces probably did not survive the campfires during the evening perusal of their creations. That trip was probably the most that they ever painted together. Harris never returned to Algonquin Park after the death of his dear friend in 1917. Instead, Harris would finance the famous Box Car Trips for his artist friends to Algoma in 1918 and 1919. Algonquin would never be the same for this circle of friends without Thomson. 

A.Y. Jackson remarked "After Thomson was drowned in 1917, we had not the heart to go back to Algonquin Park, so moved to Algoma and Lake Superior, and then to the Arctic, Yukon ..."

Chance encounters can shape a life. I believe the above words of his friend Ben Jackson come closest to describing the real Thomson as opposed to the modern myth that circulates the art world. 

Inscription verso: 

• l.r., half of estate stamp (M; u.l., in graphite, Reserved for / STUDIO BUILDING; 
• u.l., in graphite, by Lawren Harris?, for Tom MacLean; 
• u.r., brown bordered label (removed), (TT writing) Spring Aura Lee Lake / 11 (circled) Not for Sale (crossed out) McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg (1970.2)

Provenance:

• Tom MacLean. After his death it went to his daughter. 
• R.A. Laidlaw, Toronto 
• McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg (1970.2). Gift of R.A. Laidlaw, 1970

Remarks:

The corners of the sketch have nail or pin holes but they do not pierce through the sketch. Other sketches with the same feature include Burnt Country, Spring 1915 (1915.33), Dawn on Round Lake [Kawawaymog Lake], Fall 1915 (1915.115), and Algonquin Evening, Fall 1916 (1916.106)

My Thomson friend examined the pin holes on "Aura Lee Lake" and made the following observation:

"I had a look at the pinholes in the enlarged view. Interesting that their position varies from one corner to another. I wonder if Tom put in thumbtacks or something similar at one time to separate wet sketches in his paint box."

"The tacks used on the upper two holes dislodged some paint when removed. The arc on the lower right remains a bit of a mystery. The radius of that arc suggests a very large tack head or perhaps some paint was scraped away by a fingernail when the tack was removed? Once again, we will never really know..."

The musings of my Thomson friend are well-founded! Plein air artists tend to be creative souls and sometimes invent unusual fixes to challenges out of necessity. 

A thumbtack placed in the corner of a sketch is a common plein air ploy to separate wet panels and canvases. That is something I have done countless times over my painting career. Special, double-pointed tacks are even made for this purpose. The economical, handyman plein air artist just glues two tacks together at almost no cost. An explanation of one of my plein air kits follows to illustrate how I transport very wet paintings. One would need to look very carefully at my plein air paintings as I fill the holes with paint after I have them back in the Studio. 

As a weather aside, the cold low, layered cloud of "Aura Lee Lake"  would naturally follow the severe thunderstorm observed in "Ragged Pine" by a few days. The southeastern flank of an approaching cold low is a favoured location for severe convection. Aura Lee Lake was just a short paddle downstream from the black spruce incorrectly identified as a "Ragged Pine". Of course, we will never know the facts for certain but science and weather do provide a reasonable linkage in both time and space. 

A closer look at the historic photo from 1946 follows. 

Many interesting stories can be discovered with boots on the ground, open minds and good science. History can be rediscovered and brought to life.  I continue to learn from the Thomson experts who have become my friends over the years!

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.