Day: July 10, 2014

Tuesday, 10

Morning wet and cool Mr Shannon Fraser came to house about 9:15 am and reported that Martin Bleacher had found Tom Thompsons Canoe floating upside down in Canoe Lake and wanted us to drag for Mr Thompsons body.

We went to Canoe Lake and interviewed Miss Bleacher who was with her Brother on sunday in his little motor Boat. Going to Tea Lake dam they Passed a Canoe floating upside down between Stattons Point and the Bertram Island They didn’t stop to examine the Canoe as they had heard there was a canoe had drifted away from its moorings and had not been found but they intended to pick up the same as they returned. They passed canoe at 35 pm on Sunday the 8th after hearing different evidence we returned expecting to hear of Mr. Thom son 

“No Ordinary Case” – The Reburial of Tom Thomson

“As I said before this was no ordinary case.” That was the reply by R.H. Flavelle, undertaker, in a letter to my brother-in-law, Tom Harkness to justify the extra costs of embalming fluid and carrying the casket a mile-and-a-half through the woods to the cemetery.

Indeed, for six days, from July 16th to July 21st, 1917 it was anything but ordinary – it was a litany of errors and a series of ill-advised actions that made the tragedy far worse than it already was.

My body, as most believe, was recovered from Canoe Lake on July 16, 1917. I mysteriously disappeared eight days earlier on July 8th, 1917. This is the story, not of the tragedy of my disappearance, but rather the tragedy of my reappearance, my burial, my exhumation, and my reburial.

Get ready for July 16th when a body unexpectedly reappears…