Tom Thomson's Spring Break-up, 1916

Thomson's Shack in 1915

Tom Thomson headed back to Algonquin in mid-March 1916 after a very productive winter roughing it in "The Shack" for a dollar a month. That winter produced masterworks "Spring Ice", "In the Northland", "Autumn's Garland" and "The Pool" to mention just a few. 

En route, Tom visited with Winnie Trainor for a few days at her #3 Minerva Street home in Huntsville. My friend Roy MacGregor relates that when Winnie used to rent out the lower floor of her big brown house, she told renters they were lucky to be living in the only house in Canada where Tom Thomson had painted the living room walls.

Mid-March of 1916 was perhaps when Tom spruced up Winnie's living room with a fresh coat of paint. Like so many things, we will never know. No doubt he did not sign those walls just like he typically didn't autograph his plein air work either.  "Spring Break-up, 1916" was one of the few exceptions when he did add his signature. 

Canoe Lake Station

After leaving Huntsville and Winne Trainor, Tom took the Grand Trunk Railway to Canoe Lake Station. There was a brief window of time for Tom to be painting ice in the spring of 1916. Only one creek aside from Potter and Joe was within safe and easy reach of Mowat Lodge. That unnamed creek drains Rainbow Lake which is a few kilometres to the north. Travel during that time of year can be treacherous given the questionable ice and water conditions. Even walking through the clear-cut forest would have been a challenge given the tangle of brush and a slushy mix of marsh, ice and snow. Everything would be slippery with spring. 

It is important to remember the landscape that Thomson returned to in the spring of 1916 was still in the grips of an icy winter. It was also a ravaged land, the details of which can be found in a previous post "Tom Thomson's Spring, Algonquin Park, Spring 1916". 

Here is a brief summary of how and why the landscapes around Canoe Lake changed so dramatically. 

Recall that the Gilmour brothers operated the huge Gilmour Mill in Trenton. The March 1888 issue of Canada Lumberman included the following comment, 

"You think you have big mills in the United States, but the best of them dwindle into comparative insignificance alongside of the Gilmour mill, which has a capacity of 900,000 feet per day...".

The Gilmours were running out of timber so at the Ontario government auction in October 1892, David Gilmour purchased the timber rights on 225 square kilometres of land in the Canoe and Joe Lake region. The consensus was that he paid far too much. 

Gilmour and Co. Sawmills at Canoe Lake1903

David Gilmour and his brother Allan built the new company town at Canoe Lake in 1896. The bustling village was named "Mowat" after a politician of the day. About 500 workers plus family lived in the village enjoying a hospital, horse stables, a warehouse, cookhouse, storehouses, offices,  houses, boarding houses and a cemetery. Meanwhile, John Booth's Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway would soon reach Canoe Lake. A rail spur was constructed from the Mowat Mill to the Booth rail station just 2 kilometres to the north.

The new lumber mill was charging full steam ahead in the spring of 1897 but the Canoe Lake Mill would survive only five seasons. The Gilmour Lumber Company incurred big debts and Canada was coming out of a depression. The mill closed in September 1901 for good. Everyone returned to Trenton but even that mill and the Gilmour Lumber Company were done and torn down by 1909. 

Spring, Algonquin Park, Spring 1916

Tom also painted "Spring, Algonquin Park" in 1916 and the ravaged landscape was well recorded in that painting. The chip yard location where Tom painted that scene was very near where "Spring Break-up" had been completed a couple of weeks earlier. 

Location and viewing angles for Spring, Algonquin Park, Spring 1916

As revealed by Thomson's painting and photograph, the Mowat chip yard was desolate and the surrounding forest had been denuded of valuable timber to feed the Canoe Lake and Trenton lumber mills. "Spring, Algonquin Park" would have been painted in mid-April just before Thomson left on his fishing trip to the Cauchon Lakes.  

In late March 1916 when Thomson painted "Spring Break-up", that same painting spot would have been accessible by the road from Mowat Lodge to Canoe Lake Station. The road access was not too bad in comparison to getting to all of the other painting places that he might have wished to get to.

Spring River/Spring Break-up, 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

The lakes and creeks would have still been full of ice in late March exactly as Thomson observed. The painting location for "Spring Break-up, 1916" would have been close to his accommodation at Mowat Lodge. A likely creek would have been a short stroll along the road to Canoe Lake Station just north of the Lodge. Thomson possibly painted "Autumn Clouds Fall 1915" at the same location the previous fall. The following graphic summarizes that painting's location looking northwest along "Rainbow Creek". The creek drains Rainbow Lake so it is appropriate to name it after its source although officially, it has no known name. 

The creek painted in "Spring Break-up, 1916" gets narrow with distance and deviates to the gap in the hills to the left in the above graphic. This suggests that the view was looking upstream and Tom was close to the mouth of the creek where it drained into Canoe Lake. If this is the case, Tom was looking more northerly than when he painted "Autumn Clouds Fall 1915" which is an important factor in deciphering the weather. 

The central hill in  "Autumn Clouds Fall 1915" is labelled as Hill 2 above and also in the following graphic. The terrain recorded in "Spring Break-up, 1916" matches the hills around the north end of Canoe Lake.  

Tom completed several paintings from the area around the mouth of "Rainbow" Creek using Mowat Lodge as his home base. These paintings all had northerly viewing angles. Plein air artists avoid looking into the sun for more reasons than to protect their eyesight. Any scene illuminated with the sun on the artist's back must be front-lit and full of colour. There are of course exceptions to every generalization but at the latitude of Algonquin Park, it is typically correct to start a Creative Scene Investigation with a northerly viewing angle. 

The investigation of the terrain using elevation maps and other Thomson art to locate the painting spot for "Spring Break-up, 1916" was challenging. One can never be certain particularly since the forest has recovered and changed so much in the last century. Thankfully Tom painted exactly what he saw. The clues included in his oils reveal much about the nature of the landscape. 

Thomson's painting revealed that the flow in "Rainbow Creek" was subsiding and the spring flood was well past. The ice was melting first along the shoreline as the bare earth soaked in the heat from the sun. The white ice supported from the bottom of the creek was drained of water after the flood had passed. The remaining water in the creek's main channel was calm and reflective. Tom's painting observed that spring was right around the corner... of the creek! 

The ice along the edge provides the clincher that the spring flood has passed. The ice breaks first along the edge like a hinge. As the water continues to recede, these lines paralleling the shape of the shore form further out from the edge. Structure on the bottom of the creek can also cause other more random cracks in the rotten ice. The following graphic locates these fractures in the rotten ice. 

The same ice transformation noted on the banks of "Rainbow" Creek can also be observed on the shores of a lake. The movement of lake ice can push some of it up on the shoreline - above the water level.  Water drains from the crystalline structure dramatically "whitening" the reflective surface. The high water content of "rotten", melting ice keeps the mass as a cohesive, sodden conglomerate of crystals. Those crystals become separate reflectors when the water drains away.  I only have a distant view of the remains of "whitened" ice on the north shore of Singleton Lake. I have witnessed tall piles of brilliant ice on those rocky shores but omitted taking pictures to chronicle the event. I wish I had anticipated the need to document that science, unaware at the time that Tom had recorded the phenomenon in oils. That ice is the last to melt and patches of it can be seen in the accompanying photo. 

And now for the weather... Admittedly, the sky was just a tiny portion of this landscape not even filling the top third of the small panel. Regardless of the minimal space allocated, Thomson still devoted his full attention to the nuances of the clouds. 

Tom had the sun on his back and the northerly viewing angle of the scene would favour a timing around noon. There were no shadows painted into this scene as they would all be pointed away from Tom and thus not visible. 

I also consulted with my friend Johnny Met and he made these observations: 

"The sky is relatively easy for a weather observer to see. There are several layers of clouds. In spring, there is a lot of surface moisture from melting snow and ice. The lower cloud looks like the first daytime heating cumulus forming. Then a brisk upper wind may be a warm conveyor belt blowing perpendicular to the cloud, making ripples in the higher cloud. The altocumulus seems to be invading the sky from the west. There is a layer of wispy, see-through cirrus  cloud above all the other clouds that may be associated with a jet stream."

The detailed science of the companions of the warm conveyor belt is explained in more detail in "The Art and Science of Phil the Forecaster". There is no exam on this material!

Thomson did an underpainting on the panel for “Spring Break-up, 1916”. The high-resolution image of the painting on the Alan Klinkhoff Gallery site clearly shows the texture of the brushstrokes that applied the coloured underpainting.  Preparing a surface for a painting is actually quite involved and it is unclear whether Thomson did all of the steps which are described briefly in order below.

• Blocking Size - Raw canvas, or any oil painting substrate, requires an impermeable barrier between itself and the oil paint. One does not want the oils seeping into the substrate. As well any chemicals in the substrate must not leach into the oils. 
• Priming - The painting surface also requires priming. The primer is also called a ground or gesso. The primer is not size and will not seal or create a barrier to the surface or paint. The absorbent primer does exactly the opposite by providing a surface for the paint to bind to. A ground of oil paint has more tooth and provides more drag on the brush as compared to the slippery acrylic or traditional rabbit skin gessoes.
• Underpainting follows the priming step when you want to start to create your composition. Earth colours are typically used for underpainting in oils because they dry quickly due to their iron content; have a matte finish and have large particle sizes. The texture of the underpainting can often be seen in the final work. This underpainting stage needs to be loose and creative, at least for me. I do not use rulers or straight edges.

My Thomson friend brought the following details of the underpainting of “Spring Break-up, 1916” to my attention. It is well worth sharing as it provides more insight into the art of Tom Thomson. Note how the brushstrokes that applied the yellow ochre oils are aligned along a diagonal from corner to corner. The thick, oily strokes provide interesting, additional texture to the finished painting as well as a complementary colour to the composition. 

The complementary colours of yellow ochre are light blues or greens on the opposite side of the colour wheel - exactly as Tom included in "Spring Break-up". Letting some of the underpainting peek through the finished art allows the adjacent, complementary colours to scintillate. Employing some simple colour theory can make the art sparkle and come alive!

A coloured underpainting also benefits the eye health of a plein air artist. Painting on a bright and reflective white gessoed surface with the sun on your back is very hard on your eyes. All wavelengths including ultra-violet are reflected from a white painting surface into the artist's eyes. A coloured surface is much less reflective. 

Spring River/Spring Break-up, 1916

This painting was not 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. The Thomson Estate Stamp was not used on this panel. Tom signed the panel in the lower right with very dark oils using a small brush. 

Mario Airomi, the master artist from Florence who relocated to Maitland near Brockville after World War Two, advised me to never use black paint in dark shadows. Instead, "Pheal, use a dark complement and mixing red with it will yield a surprise". I smile every time at the wisdom of Mario! Thomson apparently used both bone and charcoal black oil pigments and it looks like he employed one of those to sign his name on this panel. 

Telling the story of a painting is important but the art must also speak for itself. While in galleries I often watch people look at the signature before the painting. The signature is important but much less than listening to the brush strokes. The name need not be large and blaring but it does need to be there, somewhere. 

There are no rules. Some artists only sign the back of a painting. I sign both the recto and verso. The name on the front (recto) must blend with the painting. The loudest voice needs to be that of the oils rather than the signature. Typically that signature is signed when the painting is done but the oils are still wet. This is just my opinion of course.

Tom’s choice of black paint for his signature (above right) makes me ponder that signing this work was an afterthought not using the wet oils on his palette. Tom's signature on "Birches, 1916" used a colour mixed from his palette (above left). The likely time "Spring Break-up, 1916" was signed was when Tom gifted the art to a friend. Of course, we will never know for certain. 

Inscription recto:

• signed by the artist, 'TOM THOMSON' (lower right)

Inscription verso:

• inscribed, ‘CAT.90’ (verso frame, upper left, in crayon); 
• titled & inscribed, ‘Spring Ice / TOM THOMSON / Mrs. J.S. McLean’ (verso frame, upper right, in graphite)

Provenance:

• The J.S. McLean Collection of Canadian Painting
• Edith Lillian Flavelle McLean, probably circa 1954, bequest from the above, her late husband
• William F. McLean, probably circa 1967, by descent from the above, his mother
• Carol June McLean, circa 2001, bequest from the above, her husband
• Private collection, Ontario.

The fact that Tom signed this sketch indicates that it probably went to an unknown friend. Tom only signed a very few plein air sketches and these all went to friends like Ernest Freure, Daphne Crombie, and Tom McLean.  The "J.S. McLean" noted in the provenance above was the president of Canada Packers and not related to Thomson's friend Tom McLean.  

J.S. McLean started to collect Canadian art in the late 1920s. McLean’s impressive collection was shown at the National Gallery of Canada in February and March 1952 and it included eight oil panels by Tom Thomson. Thomson had signed five of those paintings.  There are no records detailing how and when McLean acquired these paintings which might have revealed the identity of the unknown Thomson friend. Later in 1952, McLean recalled:

“Tom Thomson had been dead more than ten years and, although I have several of his oil sketches, including that of the “West Wind”, I have never been able to secure a good Thomson canvas.” 

J.S. McLean  (1876-1954) was one of the country's most avid collectors of Canadian contemporary art. The art is now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). The J.S. McLean Collection of Canadian Painting was gifted to the Ontario Heritage Foundation in 1969. It was then donated to the AGO in 1988. Canada Packers further gifted 173 paintings from the McLean Collection in 1990.

As mentioned above, Thomas Wesley McLean [1881-1951] who worked with Tom Thomson at the Grip was not related to J.S. McLean - the last name is just a coincidence. The story behind Tom McLean was detailed in "Tom Thomson's, Aura Lee Lake, Spring 1916". Tom McLean was a vital thread linking the personalities who guided Thomson to Algonquin and his meteoric 5-year burst of creativity. Encounters can be serendipitous and Tom 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.

In the spring of 1916 Thomson was having fun with his paints. He did not need to venture far from his room at Mowat Lodge to be inspired. Of course, no one can be certain that the above story is absolutely accurate but it does make the most of the clues left in plain sight on Tom's small panel. 

Maybe surprisingly, the underlying theme is one of a devasted environment and economic ruin. With the Canoe Lake forest clear-cut, there was nothing to hold back the meltwater from the winter storms over the Algonquin Highlands. The spring floods along "Rainbow" Creek would have been a recent occurrence but one that Thomson recorded on this small panel. These lessons have yet to be learned not just in Canada but around the globe. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this...

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick, Tom Thomson Post TT-130

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date. 

Tom Thomson's The Lake, Bright Day, Fall 1916

The next painting was anticipated to follow in the series of  Creative Scene Investigations (CSI) from the1916 when Tom Thomson was a fire ranger based at Achray on Grand Lake. Tom was able to create some masterworks while fishing and painting with friends in the spring of 1916. It is also thought that Tom found time to paint in the autumn after the fire ranger job was winding down. Tom was able to mix some painting time in with his fire ranger duties but he lamented that it was not nearly enough. Tom wrote in a letter to his patron Dr MacCallum sent from Basin Depot on October 4th, 1916: 

"Have done very little sketching this summer as I find that the two jobs don’t fit in." 

Earlier in the same letter Tom wrote:

"Could you arrange to come up this week.  You could get a train to Achray at Pembroke Sat. Night at 7.30 or more likely 10 o’clock and be here somewhere around 12 ..." 

From the title and the Official Catalogue Raisonné entry, "The Lake, Bright Day, Fall 1916" might have been Grand Lake. The panel could have been done in the window of time around October 4th while Tom was still a fire ranger. 

This painting could have also been Canoe Lake. In "Birches, 1916", Tom was postulated to have taken the train from Achray to spend some quality time "home" with his guiding friends. Train travel was reasonably fast and would have easily had Tom back to Canoe Lake in time to enjoy the beautiful autumn weather. Tom apparently returned to Toronto by November 16th, 1916. 

The McElroys of Point Alexander come to the rescue again. They are extremely familiar with Thomson's works from 1916 and the Grand Lake area. (See "Tom Thomson at Achray in 1916")  

Bob and Diana have paddled the Achray area since the 1970s but started working seriously on Thomson painting locations in 2013. They continue to contribute much to the Thomson legacy. 

Like Jim and Sue Waddington who wrote "In the Footsteps of the Group of Seven, the McElroys "have a passion for paddling and investigating Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven painting places." These art investigators also have backgrounds in nuclear physics which I share. Jim Waddington and I even went to the Brockville Collegiate and Vocational School and married our high school sweethearts... but I digress.

The travels of  Diana and Bob McElroy in the wake of Thomson's canoe provide some interesting background to "The Lake, Bright Day, Fall 1916". 

As they note on their website:

"We suspect that several of Thomson's paintings are of Berm Lake and of the mouth of Johnson Creek on Grand Lake. However, these identifications are perhaps the most speculative of our determinations because modern vegetation has completely altered this landscape."

The Lake, Bright Day, Fall 1916,
Oil on wood 8 7/16 x 10 1/2 in. (21.5 x 26.7 cm),
Tom's Paintbox size, Catalogue 1916.109

"We suspect that this was painted from on or near the the railway embankment looking towards the mouth of Johnston Creek and beyond to Carcajou Bay."

 Above image: "Here is that view from 1978. The sketch is a 'tighter crop' than the photo. This location, the mouth of Johnston Creek and the mouth of Carcajou Bay all line up — on the map, in the photo and in the sketch."

Image to the left: "Here is that same view (or very close) from 2016 May — quite ingrown. And even more ingrown in the summer."

The geometry is detailed in the composite graphic below. 

The efforts of the McElroys to locate the exact painting location were hampered by the regrowth of the forest during the intervening years. It was demonstrated in "View from the Top of a Hill 1916" that the forest around Grand Lake had been clear-cut in the early 20th century.  Tom recorded those naked forest views on his small panels. The trees have come back in the last century masking those clear-cut landscapes. 

My Thomson friend suggested that "The Lake, Bright Day, Fall 1916" might have been observed at Canoe Lake from the mouth of the "Rainbow" Creek where Tom had painted before looking upstream in "Autumn Clouds", Catalogue Raisonné 1915.75. The details of that painting location are included below. 

Although the required view looking southeastward across Canoe Lake has the proper illumination, the terrain does not match. 

Sometimes we have to proceed with the Creative Scene Investigation without a perfect identification for the location. The remaining option is to do nothing and that is not acceptable. 

Thankfully, the science of the clouds has not changed! Close examination of the weather might reveal some truths behind Tom's "The Lake, Bright Day, Fall 1916".  The clouds that Tom painted were multi-cell convective cumuli characteristic of early fall rather than later in the season. This fact favours a location around Grand Lake that is yet to be found. Note that the science of multi-cell cumulonimbus (thunderstorms) was described in "Thunder Cloud: Summer 1912" but these clouds were not severe thunderstorms - just "fairweather" cumuli. 

In “Cloud Shapes and Lines in the Atmosphere” I illustrated that cloud patterns are much simpler if you immerse yourself within the atmospheric frame of reference. Our earthly frame of observation is not where the clouds live. Cloud puffs, swirls and lines are all part of the same deformation zone conceptual model. All lines in the sky must be deformation zones!  

Most people see the lines first as the swirls are typically less obvious. An atmospheric line details the swirl location and type and whether the air is likely to be rising or subsiding. The line of the deformation zone must also be either parallel to the atmospheric frame winds when the wind speed increases or perpendicular to the wind if the wind speed is decreasing (see "A Jet Streak with a Paddle" and "Lines and Swirls Explained" for further explanations). Simply, the deformation zone can reveal the weather. It was my favourite meteorological tool ... but I digress yet again. 

Moisture in the air traces air flows which would otherwise remain unseen. These patterns directly relate to the physical processes and the weather. Smoke rings are a common example of the physics of the deformation zone at work. 

The puff of air that forms a smoke ring can be blown in any direction. The updraft heated from the ground that forms a single-cell cumulus cloud must be initially pointed upward. 

The cloud envelopes are deformation zone skins. As described in "Finding Deformation Zones" and in many other posts within The Art and Science of Phil the Forecaster, the shape of the deformation zones uniquely describes an array of nested three-dimensional swirls and the associated atmospheric frame of reference winds. Before your eyes glaze over, the details of this are not repeated here and this material will not be on any exam... Only the highlights required to explain what Tom saw on that bright fall day will be included. 

I painted a single-cell cumulus on the left. The first cell to go up convectively must be the typical bowed-shaped "cauliflower" cloud. Subsequent updrafts will be double-cyclonic deformation zone shapes linked together in a chain with the positive vorticity maxima dominating the vorticity minima. 

In Tom's painting, there are three individual updrafts or smoke ring "puffs" within the prominent cumulus cloud. The 3D patterns can only be described by 2D lines within the flat graphics of this post. There are strong and bold vertical strokes in the painting linked to bumps in the cauliflower cloud head. 

The horizontal wind typically increases with height and the first initial updraft was tipped over with that wind. The third and final updraft was more vertical. The take-home message from this multi-cell cumulus cloud was that the wind was blowing left to right and increased with height. The impact of friction is responsible for slower wind speeds near the ground. 

The following animation of multicell thunderstorms illustrates the same process occurring in the less dramatic cumulus clouds. 

In "Making Chili Science", I described how Langmuir streaks that parallel the atmospheric wind can be explained using the Bernoulli principle. Briefly, an increase in the horizontal wind results in a local drop in pressure and a change in the wind pattern. The empty bean cans from making a big batch of chilli were used to describe what happened next. 

Cloud streets of cumuli parallel the horizontal wind direction. Helical circulations develop within the planetary boundary level as imagined by Irving Langmuir. (See "Langmuir Streaks – Take the time to Observe and Learn from Nature" for more details.)

Another way to create a local decrease in pressure is to have air ascending with a convective thermal. Surface pressure must decrease under ascending air! (That is how your home barometer can help explain the weather but I digress.)The resulting cloud patterns form a continuum of shapes that evolve from simple cumulus to more complex multicellular convective clouds.  If the horizontal wind is strong enough Langmuir streaks of parallel cloud streets also develop. That is what Tom witnessed on that bright autumn day in 1916. 

The following graphic summarizes what the clouds can reveal about Thomson's "The Lake, Bright Day, Fall 1916".

• The multi-cell cumulus cloud in Tom's painting conclusively indicates that the wind was from left to right. The updrafts move higher with time and in that interval, the horizontal wind was advecting the successive thermals from the left to the right. The wind was increasing with height and tipping those thermals over as well. 
• The bright top of another cumulus behind the first reveals that another such line of cumulus clouds was developing to the south. This is where "Chili" science comes into play. 
• The solar illumination on the clouds indicated a southerly view across a large expanse of a lake. 
• The sun was on the back, right shoulder of Tom who was looking away from the bright sunlight and recording the colourful, front-lit scene. Artists rarely stare into the sun...
• From the clouds on the southern horizon, we can deduce that the cumulus clouds were within the cold conveyor belt of an approaching storm. 

The skies were blue overhead but thicker and overcast clouds were on the southern horizon. The cirrus deformation zone might have already moved to the north of Tom's painting location but that cirrus was not thick enough to significantly obstruct the daytime heating required to fuel those convective, cumulus bubbles on that bright, autumn day. Quite often when viewing satellite imagery, I witness the cumulus aligning with the cold conveyor belt only in the areas ahead of the cirrus level deformation zone. The moisture content and instability within the cold air mass determine the extent of such cumulus but that is another story. 

I consulted with my friend Johnny Met and he made these observations: 

"I think the artist paused in the early evening to enjoy the sunset. It is fall. The leaves have turned red and gold and are blowing to the ground because of the wind. The sky looks windy, with the daytime cumulus starting to break up into skud clouds. There is a higher layer of cloud looking like altocumulus, either moving towards the artist or disappearing over the horizon.

The artist has his back to the sunset, so he is looking east, meaning altocumulus is moving eastwards. The lake seems a little rough, maybe a Beauford scale of 1 or 2."

Johnny Met's weather observations are more or less consistent with the above diagnosis. A direction of view somewhere between the east and south is required based on the weather. It is always good to have a second or even third expert opinion. 

The meteorology of clouds and winds has not changed in the last century although our understanding of the processes might have improved since Tom's days. Although there are potential alternatives to explaining what Tom observed, the above summary ticks all of the boxes as a likely scenario. I find it intriguing that we can place Thomson more accurately within the weather pattern of the day than we can in the changing forested landscape. 

The following cumulus cloud patterns were very similar while I prepared this post. I was watching a springtime northeasterly cold conveyor belt being drawn into an approaching weather system at 2:30 pm on the afternoon of Sunday, May 19th, 2024. I was looking southeasterly from the front porch enjoying the sights and sounds of spring. Each "puff" in the following image can be envisioned as a separate smoke-ring circulation. The single cumulus tends to merge the independent smoke rings into one cloud mass. The weather situation would have been almost identical for Thomson on the autumn afternoon in 1916. 

It might also be instructive to examine how Tom constructed the composition of "The Lake, Bright Day". There are no art police and Tom could do whatever pleased him. This also allows another look at what moved Tom - nature and the weather...

This painting was in the stack of panels salvaged from Thomson's Shack. Probably Harris or MacDonald suggested the title "The Lake, Bright Day". They also applied the estate stamp on both the front and the back of the panel. If Dr MacCallum had taken the train to  Achray as Tom had asked, the good doctor might have been with Tom when this was painted. That could also explain why it ended up in Dr MacCallum's personal collection of Thomson's art.

Inscription recto:

• l.l., estate stamp (see above graphic)

Inscription verso: 

• c., and l.l., estate stamp; 
• in graphite, 1916- fall JM / Creek running into–; 
• u.c., in black crayon, James MacCallum; 
• u.r., label, AGT Dec. 31/40 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4650)

Provenance:

• Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (4650). Bequest of Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto, 1944

This panel must have caught MacCallum's eye during the sorting process of the spring of 1918. It is still unknown whether Tom's patron had made the train trip to Achray in October 1916 as requested in the October 4th letter written by Tom. 

Boots on the ground and paddles in the water not to mention open minds and good science are required to really appreciate Thomson's art. History can be rediscovered and brought to life if we only try.

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick Tom Thomson Post TT-129

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date. 

Tom Thomson's Birches, 1916

The next painting was anticipated to follow in the series of  Creative Scene Investigations (CSI) from the spring of 1916 when Tom Thomson was fishing and painting with friends in northeastern Algonquin Park. 

The Official Catalogue Raisonné entry for "Birches, Spring 1916" was clear. This painting was also in the wheelhouse of my Tom Thomson experts who were very familiar with the Grand Lake area where that springtime painting was likely to be completed. The CSI was expected to be straightforward, informative and fun. 

Birches, 1916

Oils on wood 8.39 x 10.51 inches

Thomson's Paint Box Size, 

Catalogue 1916.70

I was primarily motivated to include this painting because the sky was actually the subject of Thomson's interest. The title might have been "Birches" but those vertical trunks were included primarily for compositional design. The colours in the sky were the real stars of Tom's plein air painting. 

It is unlikely that Thomson understood the science behind the atmospheric colours, but he had doubtless painted the phenomenon previously - see "A Northern Lake". In 1851, nearly 9 in 10 Canadians lived in rural areas. Survival depended on a knowledge of the weather and the environment. The celestial dome was a big part of their life and their living!

Since Thomson's days, the proportion of Canadians living in rural areas has dramatically declined. The break-even point occurred in the 1920s when more people lived in the cities than in the country. By 2021 Statistics Canada reveals that only 18 percent of the Canadian population were classified as rural dwellers. 

More than a century after Thomson painted his observation of the sky, most people are still unaware of this phenomenon which occurs twice every day. The population is very much urban in the 21st century in sharp contrast to the rural lifestyle of 1916.  According to a 2020 article from the University of Colorado in Boulder, (See "Celestial phenomena: STEVE, Belt of Venus, Earth's shadow and the Milky Way"):

"Approximately 90% of Americans have never seen the Milky Way, and a recent study of light pollution in the world reports that 80% of Americans cannot see stars in the night sky near their homes due to light pollution." 

It should not be surprising that people are generally unaware of the "Belt of Venus" when most city dwellers can't even see the horizon. Tom painted the colours of a classic "Belt of Venus" for at least the second time in his career. 

The Belt of Venus, also called Venus's Girdle or the anti-twilight arch is an atmospheric phenomenon visible shortly before the sun rises or after sunset, during civil twilight (the geometric center of the sun is within 6 degrees below the horizon). The pinkish glow surrounds the observer and extends 10 to 20 degrees above the horizon.

Everyone can see this phenomenon twice a day, weather permitting, but few rarely ever take any notice. Perhaps the best way to decipher Tom’s motivation is with some actual images as depicted in the following graphic. The Belt of Venus is viewed with the sun on your back with a clear sky from horizon to horizon typically devoid of all clouds. For a sunrise experience, the Belt of Venus occurs on the western horizon while during the sunset, the same observation can be made to the east. Without a knowledge of the terrain, the only hint to determine whether it is a sunrise or a sunset Belt of Venus is the intensity of the scattered red light.

Tom's motivation and a bit of the science are briefly explained in the following graphic. Tom's "Birches" occupy the upper left of the graphic while the Grand Lake sunset Belt of Venus is in the upper right. 

Simply, the horizontal band of darker bluish-grey (5) along the horizon is the shadow of the earth cast on the lower atmosphere. The swath of rose and pinkish hues (4) in the layer above the shadow results from the scattering of light that follows a long trajectory through the lowest layers of the atmosphere. The blue spectrum of that direct beam from the sun has all been scattered leaving only the longer red wavelengths for illumination. The shades of blue higher in the atmosphere result from Rayleigh scattering of the blue spectrum by atmospheric molecules. Tom was intrigued by the colours in the sunset sky but selected to include a veil of trees and shrubs in the foreground - a penchant which was a signature of his compositional style. 

A closer look at "Birches, Spring 1916" yields some important discrepancies. The trees were displaying their autumn colours suggesting that the season was not spring at all! Further, my Thomson friends suggest that their search for appropriate painting locations around Whitson and Grand Lakes for this terrain did not produce any convincing matches.

The details included in Thomson's observation of the Belt of Venus held some important clues. This observation could have been completed beside Lowery Dickson's Shack at the north end of Canoe Lake where he had painted before. Tom was looking easterly at sunset. The open water of Potter Creek was in the foreground aided by the Coriolis deflection of the current. The still water along the terrain that separates Potter and Joe Creeks was ice-covered from the previous couple of days of clear and cold weather in the wake of a cold front. Some snow had fallen with that long-gone weather system. The snow coated the reflective surface of the fresh autumn ice.

Tom was still working as a fire ranger on October 4th, 1916 but was "hoping to be laid off soon". In a letter to his patron Dr. James MacCallum (Tom Thomson, Letter to Dr. James MacCallum, Oct. 4, 19[16?]) Tom wrote:

Basin Depot / Oct. 4. 19 [1916]

Dr MacCallum / 26 Warren Rd.

Dear Sir ---

I received both your letters at the same time and was glad to hear about things in Toronto.  The Country up here is just taking the fall colour and by the end of the week it will be at its best.

Could you arrange to come up this week.  You could get a train to Achray at Pembroke Sat. Night at 7.30 or more likely 10 o’clock and be here somewhere around 12.  That train leaves from Brent Sunday morning then the next one down is Wednesday morning but I could paddle you down to Pettawa [sic] from here any day you should want to go out.

Have done very little sketching this summer as I find that the two jobs don’t fit in.  It would be great for two artists or whatever you call us but the natives can’t see what we paint for.  A photo would be great but the painted things are awuful [sic].  When we are travelling, two go together one for the canoe and the other the pack and there’s no place for a sketch outfit when your fireranging.

We are not fired yet but I am hoping to get put off right away.  I will expect you Sat. Night or any time you can get away.

Thanking you for your letters I am

Yours truly / Tom Thomson

The above is the complete letter from the MacCallum Papers collection located in the National Gallery of Canada Archives, Ottawa. The link above is to the excellent Canadian Mysteries website and specifically to Death on a Painted Lake: The Tom Thomson Tragedy. The informative website removed the important second paragraph in Tom's letter. Those words display that Tom and his friends were very knowledgeable regarding train travel to and from Algonquin Park. That kind of expertise can only be developed from familiarity with the service. Train travel in the early 20th century was efficient and convenient before Henry Ford's Model T first introduced in 1908 changed the world. How things have changed in a century! 

During the 1970s, my physics professors at Queen's University were heavily involved in magnetic levitation and high-speed train travel. A few years later as a young meteorologist, some of my coworkers were already very concerned with climate change. Transport 2000 was started in 1977 by concerned citizens that same year I became a meteorologist. They were addressing the exponentially increasing carbon footprint of transporting goods and services using trucks and highways. Now known as "Transport Action Canada", the advocacy group focuses on railways and expanding instead of contracting those train services. I greatly admired these forward-thinking and creative individuals. 

Sadly their vision was not implemented in Canada. For reason unknown, policy decisions favoured highways and the trucking industry over rail. Major "super-highways" that carve up and destroy irreplaceable habitats are still being built. Reality TV shows like Heavy Rescue: 401, Highway Thru Hell, Car Crash TV and World's Most Dangerous Roads are now deemed entertainment. But I digress yet again.

The following map of train routes from 1915 reveals several travel options for Thomson and his friends. The black oval comprises the area of the fishing holiday in the spring of 1916. Canoe Lake on the Grand Trunk Railway is within the white oval. Dr MacCallum, Lawren Harris and Chester Harris from Toronto might have even met up with Thomson in Huntsville and then proceeded as a group to Brent. The train offered easy routes home after the holiday ended and they had to return to the big city. The train was and still is the efficient way to get around Ontario even when much of it was still a relative "wilderness" back in Thomson's days. 

The canoe trip from Canoe Lake to the Cauchon Lakes is a wonderful adventure in the summer. The ice and snow of April make it unlikely that the vacationing friends used that canoe route for their fishing holiday. Although the canoe is a symbol unique to Canada and was widely used to travel the waterways of the vast land, Tom took the train probably before and after working as a fire ranger. 

Tom Wattie with a loaf of fresh bread

The romantic version of Thomson as a lone canoeist quietly enduring the hardships of lengthy wilderness travels in his quest to record iconic images of Canada is largely mythical. Roy MacGregor wrote the following on page 172 of  his book "Northern Light":

"The Wattie family has its own lore about Thomson. They joked about how he had, over time, become revered as an expert outdoorsman. 'He was not an expert canoeist,' says Copper, the son of Tom Thomson's friend Tom Wattie. ' He hadn't even seen a canoe until he got to the park.' But Thomson was game and generous, and Wattie took him under his wing..."

My Thomson friend also confirmed that the train would have delivered Tom back to Canoe Lake:

"Thomson would have taken the train from Achray in the fall of 1916, after spending the summer “not getting much painting done”....connections with the Grand Trunk train would carry him through Algonquin Park to Canoe Lake Station."

After some investigation, Thomson almost certainly took the train back to Canoe Lake Station after this fire ranger job ended (Also see Ontario and Quebec Railway Territories 1915). His friend Shannon Fraser certainly picked his friend Tom up from the train station using his horse-drawn buggy. Tom's journey back to Mowat Lodge for some of Annie's homecooked meals would not have been very arduous.

Tom would have been anticipating the company of his friends at Mowat Lodge. His guiding buddies would have been looking forward to a visit from Tom as well and might have filled him with plentiful good cheer. The 1913 picture to the left shows Tom's friend and fishing guide Lowery Dickson with some happy clients. 

Thomson's friend Lowery Dickson (left) guiding a group in 1913

Coincidentally, the Ontario Temperance Act was also passed in 1916 before Tom painted "Birches". That Act prohibited alcohol in Ontario. Lowery Dickson (also referred to as Larry/ Lowry, Dixon/Dickson) did not let some laws alter the lifestyle that he had enjoyed for most of his eighty-some years. Sadly, Lowery Dickson would die early in the spring of  1918 from injuries incurred while canoeing during a severe thunderstorm. Recall that supercellular severe convection is climatologically common across Algonquin Park in the spring of the year. 

As an interesting aside Edwin Thomas worked at Algonquin Park Station at Cache Lake in 1913. Edwin moved his family to Canoe Lake Station and was the proprietor of that station from circa 1914 to 1920. Edwin and his family would have been well acquainted with Tom Thomson when he was actively painting and using the railway lines. Apparently, Edwin and Mrs Thomas opened Kish Kaduk Lodge on Cedar Lake circa 1927/28. Rose Thomas and her younger cousin Jack Wilkinson would later operate the lodge until around 1975... but I digress... again... 

The following historical photo below shows George Rowe and Charlie Scrim, both guiding friends of Thomson. George Rowe lived with Lowery Dickson in a cabin on a low sandy point at the mouth of Potter and Joe Creeks. Rowe was trained as a typesetter but was displaced by technology. 

Tom was eager to get at his brushes again. He could have been "home" and painting up a storm again by mid-October 1916.  "Birches" was probably even completed at Canoe Lake!

The low terrain just above the low water levels of autumn is typical of the shore where Potter and Joe Creeks converge. Tom would paint that landscape about six months later when Annie Fraser and Daphne Crombie went for a stroll. 

The following graphic links the terrain painted by Thomson in the spring of 1917. Tom's "Lowery Dickson's Cabin"  is on the left with similar, numbered features observed in "Birches" on the upper right. The viewing angle would have been approximately from 256 degrees which was the sunset azimuth for October 21st, 1916. The terrain features match well between the two paintings. The screen of shoreline white birches was even recorded in both paintings. 

The following historical photo of Lowery Dickson's cabin at the exit of  Potter Creek shows how low it was to the water. The bow of the photographer's canoe is in the foreground. Some birch trees that attracted Thomson to the painting site are also included in the photo. Tom stood among the birches standing in clumps to the right of the cabin. 

If I may digress yet again, there are even more details to be gleaned from the information revealed by the above historical photo. The front porch of Lowery Dickson's Cabin enjoyed a southerly exposure at the very edge of Canoe Lake. The canoe's bow, the lady's dress and the tin roof were all strongly front-lit. The orientation of the roof line matches that from Thomson's 1917 painting "Lowery Dickson's Cabin". Thankfully, Tom painted exactly what he saw. 

Employing the orientation of the roof line and the terrain of Dickson's Point, the following graphic summarizes how we might deduce exactly where Thomson painted that October sunset in 1916 - the yellow star in the graphic. Tom was beside Lowery Dickson's Cabin when he painted "Birches". The more we look, the more we will see. By the way, that is all the cabin I would require to thoroughly enjoy life surrounded by nature, but I digress yet again. 

Another digression links Lowery Dickson, George Rowe and Tom Thomson for the last time. On July 16th, 1917 more than a week after Thomson went missing on July 8th, Lowery Dickson was paddling from the stern of his canoe with George Rowe in the bow. Dr. Goldwyn Howland, a Psychiatric doctor on ordered medical leave from his position at the Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, saw something surface on the lake. He was vacationing at the Taylor Statten Cottage on Little Wapomeo Island with his daughter. They directed the passing guides to the grisly discovery of Thomson's decomposing body. The red cross in the above graphic locates where Thomson's body was found. 

Now back to Thomson's painting, a large high-pressure centre was controlling the weather when Tom observed the "Birches" in late October 1916. Clear, cold and calm nights would have been conducive for making ice on the lake. Any snow that fell with the departed weather system that had ushered in the Arctic air, would remain on the ice as the white blanket Tom painted. The sunshine would have made the days pleasant for painting and fishing but not mild enough to melt the snow or ice. It is a favourite time of the year for plein air painting with no biting bugs. The Belt of Venus was proof that the sky was clear from horizon to horizon on the October day.

The "Birches" title of the painting refers to the trees which were employed as compositional elements in the painting. Tom had a tendency to include a screen of trees in the foreground of his work. His graphic design experience guided him in placing those trees although I personally doubt that he moved the reality of their positioning very much from nature. The "rule of thirds" is described in the following graphic even though all rules are meant to be broken if not bent. 

My Thomson friend also observes:

"I have been looking at the sketch to see what order things were painted.  Interesting that the main white birch trunks went on before the sky, but the foliage and the skinny black saplings were laid over the sky later.  The Belt of Venus doesn't last very long, so perhaps he just wanted to get the bones of the composition down first, catch the sky colours right away, and finish the details afterwards.  I'll spend some more time on this aspect - I always feel it gives a little peek into his mind and his approach to capturing the beautiful, fleeting moments of weather."

There are no art police rulings on how trees are included with respect to the background. Brushing trees on top of the oils of the painted background is just as effective as leaving space for the tree and painting the areas in between. Thomson did what he had to do in the spur of the moment. The panel had to be completed before the inspiration vanished. A Belt of Venus lasts a maximum of twenty minutes, changing quickly and continually from the moment it starts to appear until it vanishes ... 

The Official Catalogue Raisonné conflicts with the above Creative Scene Investigation. Of course, we will never be absolutely certain of the details deduced from this "very cold case" a century later. Thankfully, Thomson included enough details in his brush strokes to reveal his true motivation. His catalogue includes 42 works using the word "birch" in the title. Unsurprisingly, not a single painting includes "Belt of Venus" in the name. Thomson did at least two Belt of Venus paintings...

This painting would have been included in the towering stack of panels salvaged from Thomson's Shack. Either Harris or MacDonald probably suggested the uninspired title "Birches". They also applied the estate stamp on the back of the panel but not the front. Both Harris and MacDonald were urbanites and did not see the atmospheric Belt of Venus in the painting. They were probably not certain if the painting was a sunrise or sunset so wisely deferred that judgment. All of this is completely understandable given that so few recognize this daily phenomenon, weather permitting, even a century later.  

Tom was apparently very happy with his art and took the time to sign it on the lower right - something he rarely did with his plein air work. The very enlarged signature is included in the above graphic.  My Thomson friend observes: 

"The signature was probably done with the side of a small, flat brush or perhaps with paint on the end of a brush handle - the colour looks like the blue band in the sky."

I quite agree. I typically use a toothpick to sign my plein air work. A colour swatch of that bluish-grey found in the shadow of the Earth is also included in the above graphic. The signature is just a bit darker in tone. If the painting was signed soon after completion as suggested, the wet oils on the panel would be flattened a bit and perhaps mixed with the oils being applied. A microscopic examination of the painting surface would be required in order to be certain. 

Inscription verso: 

• c., estate stamp; 
• u.l., in red, - and above 44; 
• u.r., in blue crayon, W.P. Mackenzie? / J. MacD; 
• c.l., in graphite, 1916
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Provenance:

• Dr. J.M. MacCallum, Toronto, purchased 1918
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

MacCallum also saw something special in this panel even if he did not see the "Belt of Venus".

The boots on the ground and paddles in the water of my Thomson friends continue to contribute greatly to these posts. Enquiring minds and good science can rediscover the truth behind the art even a century after the event. These posts are the accumulation of the work of many individuals who have been inspired by the art of Tom Thomson and have been urged to investigate further. Thank you all!

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick, Tom Thomson Post TT-128

PS: Tom Thomson Was A Weatherman - Summary As of Now contains all of the entries to date.