June 2,1917
Mowat P.O. Algonquin Park
Florence McGillivray, Whitby
June 2, 1917
Dear Florence,
I’m hoping this letter gets to you before your exhibition. I want to wish you the best. Your calling card stays in my sketch box for my good luck. Weather here has been poor. I put in the garden for the Frasers. The time for good sketching is over. I’m at the Lodge but have set up my camp across the lake. I’m staying close to the Lodge in case of guiding work.
Are you going to Ottawa later this summer? I may go myself later. I would like to visit Mr. Brown at the Gallery but I hear that the Government has taken over the building. Charlie Scrim plans to be back later, I can stay with him. I am going to the eastern part of the park in early August. If you are there, I can stay for a few days because this might be my last stopping point in Ontario before I go west. I could stop in Toronto, but I don’t think I will.
With all that’s going on and the black flies, I haven’t had a mind for sketching. I have some guiding work, but it will be scarce this summer. The summer tourists don’t seem to be coming. With the war, I can see that.
I’m glad we learned something more than what Cruikshank taught. Van Gogh seems to be the better to follow along with the other French schools. We seem to be doing the same thing here
All the best,
Tom Thomson
Tom Thomson's Last Spring 