the summer of 1980 Doug found himself painting a new sign for Algonquin Park. For two weeks he immersed himself in the natural beauty of the park. Doug has always believed, “You have to live the art in the environment where you work.”
One evening a social gathering took place at a cottage on Canoe Lake. Doug recalls, “The next morning I decided to go down to the dock. A thick mist was enshrouding Canoe Lake. I just stood on the dock with my camera hanging around my neck, looking. Then I heard this trickling sound like a paddle in the water. Suddenly a person in a canoe emerged from the mist. We made eye contact and then he turned and vanished. For some unknown reason I took his picture just before he turned and disappeared, as abruptly and mystically as he had appeared.
“In that moment I sensed a strange energy. It took me off guard. I have felt that strange feeling before. I don’t know why I took the picture and began to second-guess the experience. Had it really happened? Would there be anything on the photograph? I didn’t understand why this person had turned so abruptly. Why was someone out on the lake in such fog? Why had he disappeared? I got this strange feeling. Maybe in my own consciousness I made a connection. I do know that I can only connect from my own experience. I knew it was Tom Thomson. I was shocked when the film was developed. There was my phantom canoeist.
“I was drawn to paint the photograph. A good painting depicts what you have experienced. This photograph was a memory of the moment. The painting chooses you. It is always there. It never leaves. One day something triggers it. Within six months after the experience, I painted it. Then I painted over it. I wasn’t ready. It didn’t feel right.
“When I told people the story they agreed that it indeed could be Tom Thomson. Six or seven years later I did a small watercolour of that dramatic experience on Canoe Lake.
“Then one day, during a show in my gallery, a young man walked in. He was going to school out West. This piece of work, entitled ‘The Return of Tom Thomson’, was hanging in the show. The man purchased it. About a year later he wrote to me to say that he bought the painting because he had seen the same man in the same canoe in the park. He had felt it had been a ghost himself. He was amazed to see it hanging in my gallery.”
On the anniversary of Tom Thomson’s death a few people gather on the shore of Canoe Lake to see if he will appear. There is no question, for those who have seen him, that it is Tom.
As for Winnie Trainor, she never married and lived in Huntsville until her death. Jane Loftus pointed out that Miss Trainor would often travel to Canoe Lake and place flowers on the grave of Tom Thomson. Perhaps she never married because she knew he was still there with her. If she saw him and communicated with him, she kept it to herself.
Playwright Stina Nyquist in her Tom Thomson play, The Shantyman’s Daughter, has Miss Trainor say this about herself, “I’m a slob. I’ve been one since that summer a long-time ago. I let my hair go. I have soup stains on my blouse, my stockings are rumpled, and so on and so forth. It’s not that I’m a slob at heart. I’m not a natural-born slob. I just got that way, bit by bit, since that summer. But once every year, on this day, I dress up. I go to the beauty parlour, I put on this outfit, and this hat — if it’s not too windy. I got this dress for a special occasion that didn’t happen …”
Gaye Clemson, born and raised in Toronto, now resides in Monterey Bay, California. In the early 1950s her father decided to make Algonquin Park a part of his life and purchased a lease on Canoe Lake. In 1954 her father and mother built a cabin on the leased land.
In the May 2006 issue of The Muskoka Magazine, journalist Meaghan Deemeester wrote an article entitled “Canoe Lake,” highlighting Clemson and the Thomson Mystery.
The small graveyard overshadowed by an ancient birch stands on a hilltop beyond Canoe Lake. No signs or path marks the way to the cemetery. It remains hidden in the forest.
“Thomson, who was an avid and accomplished canoeist, died on the lake in July 1917. His body was found several days after his upturned canoe was spotted floating on the lake, and despite a four-inch cut/bruise on his left temple, and fishing line tied around his ankle, the authorities quickly deemed his death an accidental drowning.
“However, the residents of Canoe Lake feel differently, believing in most cases that foul play was involved. In fact, in the late 1970s, Clemson’s brother found the remains of a paddle stuck in the mud. She says, ‘After washing and careful examination of its weather worn condition and the fact that there was a ‘cut’ out of the blade that looked like it was an exact match to an adult male’s temple, he ascertained that it was in fact Toms’ long-lost paddle and by inference the long lost murder weapon. It hangs to this day, from our cabin ceiling.”
Her passion for local history and the tragic death surrounding Tom Thomson led Clemson to create the Tom Thomson Murder Mystery Game. According to Deemeester, “In her Murder Mystery Game, Clemson explores some of the conventional theories, mainly the result of other writers’ research, surrounding the death. Some of these include:
“Winnie Trainor is pregnant, Thomson doesn’t want to marry her; she decides to ‘do him in’ and make it look like an accident or he commits suicide as a way of getting out of marrying her.
“Shannon Fraser owed him money and Thomson wanted it back in order to get a new suit to marry Trainor. He and Shannon get into an argument, Thomson falls, hits his head on the fireplace grate and dies. Fraser and Annie try to cover it up and make it look like an accident.
“Thomson and Martin Blecher have a disagreement about the course of the First World War at a local party and angry words are exchanged. Blecher by chance meets Thomson the next day on the Drummer Lake Portage. They have words again, and Blecher hits Thomson with a paddle and he dies.”
Deemeester also adds, “According to current Ontario Parks government policy, all residential leaseholders will be obligated to either tear down or burn their buildings and ensure that the land is returned to its original state by 2017 — ironically 100 years after the death of Thomson.”
There are many unexplained events on Canoe Lake. One young girl, Sarah, found a painting tucked in a crack in a tree and an old piece of wood inscribed with biblical quote. Does she have a Tom Thomson original? Who is creating mystical art in Algonquin Park?
There are power boats on the lake now. There are mysteries and there are many unanswered questions for curious visitors.
The Severn River Inn
~ Severn Bridge ~
Let me take you to a time and a place of mystery, history, solitude, and peace. This is not necessarily linear time; perhaps it is eternal.
Welcome to the Severn River Inn at Severn Bridge, on the picturesque Severn River. May you enjoy an interesting holiday!
First — the river: the Severn River winds for 53 kilometres from Lake Simcoe through Lake Couchiching to Georgian Bay. Its namesake is a similar river winding through southwestern England. The First Nations called it Mujeduck.
The river came to be after the Wisconsin glacier and it was shallow in spots and more turbulent than it is today. The last century marked the growth of the Severn River into a gigantic waterway when a system was needed to make navigation possible from Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay. By the middle of the 19th century the river was also harnessed for power.
