Toronto Globe, July 18, 1917
Body of Tom Thomson Found in Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park
MISSING NINE DAYS
Standing as Landscape Painter Was High – To be Buried in Park
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Mr. Tom Thomson, the Toronto artist at Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park on Sunday July 8, was solved yesterday by the finding of his body. Word which reached the city last night indicated that he had been drowned. His canoe was found adrift a few hours after Mr. Thomson was last seen and the fate of the artist was a mystery until yesterday’s gruesome discovery. His brother, Mr. George Thomson of New Haven, Conn., also a painter, who had been visiting the family at Owen Sound last week when the news first came, went to the scene and joined for a time in the search. The body, it was stated in last night’s telegrams, will be buried in Algonquin Park, which had been the artist’s happy sketching ground for years.
AN ARTIST OF CHARM
Mr. Thomson, who was about forty years of age, was a landscape artist of rare charm and promise. His work steadily grew in esteem among art lovers for it represented on who not only saw, but felt and understood nature in her varied moods. His pictures were steadily sought for the collections of the Ontario and Dominion Governments.
A CRITIC’S TRIBUTE
“Critics”, said Eric Brown in a recent article in the The London Studio, “look to him to carry forward the Canadian Landscape painting far beyond anything at present realized. Wandering alone the best part of the year in Algonquin Park, inured to hardship and reputed the best guide, fisherman and canoe man in the district, he lives with these wonderful seasons and they live by him. Here, again, is the decorative sense strongly developed and visible in every composition. There is no loss in character; the northland lies before you, whether it is a winding river fringed with gaunt black pines, or whether the green blocks of melting ice float on blue liberated waters of the lake.”
Tom Thomson's Last Spring 