CANADA Canada - Tom Thomson, 39, Nipissing, Ont, 8 July 1917

[wfgodot]

I thought perhaps WS should have a thread devoted to Tom Thomson, the painter. Though his death was ruled to be caused by drowning, doubts exist about what caused him to drown; if he drowned. There are good resources on the internet for those who want to take a look at this. A couple below - particularly the second one - provide not only background but further interesting links.

Tom Thomson. (Wiki)

Death on a Painted Lake: the Tom Thomson tragedy. (canadianmysteries.ca)

A break in the mysterious case of Tom Thomson, Canada's Van Gogh. (globeandmail.com)

The Globe and Mail article is a good starting point, first published in 2012 and updated in 2012.

Tom Thomson died 96 years ago today.

 

[wfgodot]

The Globe and Mail article above was actually written in 2010 then edited later. I first heard of this case this morning on the Twitter. Someone was "live posting" events of 96 years ago, the content taken from Tom Thomson's journal. Surprisingly eerie, the effect of it.

 

[wfgodot]

From the Globe and Mail article linked above:

Hard to believe it would take nearly 40 years and a CSI-level investigation to prove that Thomson never left Canoe Lake.

The "truth" eluded Canadians for nearly a century, right back to July 16, 1917, when the missing painter's body surfaced on Algonquin Park's most famous lake - a bruise over his left temple, one ankle wrapped round and round with fishing line.

That suspicious death - accident? murder? suicide? - and the subsequent question as to whether his body remained at Canoe Lake, where his friends had buried him, or had later been exhumed at the Thomson family's request and taken to Leith, Ont., has made Tom Thomson Canada's greatest enduring mystery, his famous works inextricably tied to his fate.

The Thomson-centric blog (the "painted lake" one) intentionally echoes a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner":

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

 

[wfgodot]

From the Globe and Mail piece:

Unknown and unrecognized as part of the Tom Thomson legend in her lifetime, Winnie Trainor would be astonished to know that today she features in a song by the Tragically Hip, the "bride of the northern woods" who "waits in the shadows 'til after dark/ To sweep them all away."

The Tragically Hip - Three Pistols [Lyrics] - YouTube

 

[Ausgirl]

This is incredibly interesting, Wafflegod.

I'm leaping into the links right now. Cheers!

 

[TootsieFootsie]

New play takes a crack at an old case: A 20th-century artist's mysterious death

On July 16, 1917, the body of now-legendary Canadian painter Tom Thomson was found floating in the waters of Canoe Lake, Ontario.

www.ubyssey.ca

New play takes a crack at an old case: A 20th-century artist's mysterious death​