Tom Thomson
Born	(1877-08-05)August 5, 1877 Claremont, Ontario
Died	July 8, 1917(1917-07-08) (aged 39) Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park, Ontario

Thomas John "Tom" Thomson (August 5, 1877 – July 8, 1917) was an influential Canadian artist of the early 20th century. He directly influenced a group of Canadian painters that would come to be known as the Group of Seven, and though he died before they formally formed, he is sometimes incorrectly credited as being a member of the group itself. Thomson died under mysterious circumstances, which added to his mystique.

Personal life[link]

Tom Thomson was born near Claremont, Ontario to John and Margaret Thomson and grew up in Leith, near Owen Sound.^[1] In 1899, he entered a machine shop apprenticeship at an iron foundry owned by William Kennedy, a close friend of his father. He was fired from his apprenticeship by a foreman who complained of Thomson's habitual tardiness. Also in 1899 he volunteered to fight in the Second Boer War, but was turned down because of a medical condition. Thomson was reputed to have been refused entry into the Canadian Expeditionary Force for service in the First World War also. He served as a fire ranger in Algonquin Park during this time.^[2] In 1901, he enrolled in a business college in Chatham, Ontario but dropped out eight months later to join his older brother, George Thomson, who was operating a business school in Seattle. There he met and had a brief summer romance with Alice Elinor Lambert. In 1904, he returned to Canada, and may have studied with William Cruikshank, 1905–1906.^[2] In 1907 Thomson joined Grip Ltd., an artistic design firm in Toronto, where many of the future members of the Group of Seven also worked.

Thomson fishing in Algonquin Park

Thomson first visited Algonquin Park in 1912. Thereafter he often traveled around Canada with his colleagues, especially to the wilderness of Ontario, which was to be a major source of inspiration for him. In 1912 he began working, along with other members of the Group of Seven, at Rous and Mann Press, but left the following year to work as an artist full-time. He first exhibited with the Ontario Society of Artists in 1913, and became a member in 1914 when the National Gallery of Canada purchased one of his paintings. He would continue to exhibit with the Ontario Society until his death. For several years he shared a studio and living quarters with fellow artists, before taking up residence on Canoe Lake. Beginning in 1914 he worked intermittently as a fire fighter, ranger, and guide in Algonquin Park, but found that such work did not allow enough time for painting.^[3] During the next three years he produced many of his most famous works, including The Jack Pine, The West Wind and The Northern River.

Mysterious death[link]

Thomson disappeared during a canoeing trip on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park on July 8, 1917 and his body was discovered in the lake eight days later. The official cause of death was accidental drowning, but there are still questions about how he actually died. It was reported that there was fishing line wrapped around his leg and he had a head injury (which may have been post mortem).^[4] It has also been speculated that he was murdered by a German-American neighbour, Martin Blecher, Jr., or that he fell on a fire grate during a drunken brawl with J. Shannon Fraser, owner of Canoe Lake's Mowat Lodge, over an old loan to Fraser for the purchase of canoes. Thomson allegedly needed the money for a new suit to marry Winnifred Trainor, whose parents had a cottage at Canoe Lake. Rumours circulated following his drowning that she was pregnant with Thomson's child. Winnifred Trainor made a trip to Philadelphia with her mother the following winter and returned around Easter. She never spoke about her relationship with Thomson. A nephew, Terrance Trainor McCormick, an upper New York resident who inherited her estate, which included at least 13 small Thomson paintings and letters, said the letters confirm their engagement. McCormick has refused to produce the letters for scholarly investigation. Others believe that Thomson, who produced at least 63 landscape paintings that last spring, many of which he gave away or discarded, suffered severe depression and drowned himself. He was buried at Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park on July 17, 1917, without family members having seen the body. Under the direction of his older brother, George Thomson, the body was exhumed two days later and re-interred in the family plot beside the Leith Presbyterian Church on July 21. None of these theories are conclusive, and the wide range of speculation serves mostly to perpetuate Thomson's romantic legend.^[5]

Paintings[link]

• 

  Tom Thomson's Forest Undergrowth

• 

  Tom Thomson's The Jack Pine 1916–17

• 

  Tom Thomson's Pine Island, Georgian Bay

• 

  Tom Thomson's April in Algonquin Park 1917

• West-wind.jpg

  Tom Thomson's The West Wind

Art and technique[link]

Tom Thomson cabin at McMichael

Thomson was largely self-taught. He was employed as a graphic designer with Toronto's Grip Ltd., an experience which honed his draughtsmanship. Although he began painting and drawing at an early age, it was only in 1912, when Thomson was well into his thirties, that he began to paint seriously. His first trips to Algonquin Park inspired him to follow the lead of fellow artists in producing oil sketches of natural scenes on small, rectangular panels for easy portability while travelling. Between 1912 and his death in 1917, Thomson produced hundreds of these small sketches, many of which are now considered works in their own right, and are housed in such galleries as the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Many of Thomson's major paintings, including Northern River, The Jack Pine, and The West Wind, began as sketches before being expanded into large oil paintings at Thomson's "studio"—an old utility shack with a wood-burning stove on the grounds of the Studio Building, an artist's enclave in Rosedale, Toronto. Although Thomson sold few of these paintings during his lifetime, they formed the basis of posthumous exhibitions, including one at Wembley in London, that eventually brought international attention to his work.

Thomson's peaked creatively between 1914 and 1917. He was aided by the patronage of Toronto physician James MacCallum, who enabled Thomson's transition from graphic designer to professional painter.

Although the Group of Seven was not officially founded until after Thomson's death, his work is sympathetic to that of group members A. Y. Jackson, Frederick Varley, and Arthur Lismer. These artists shared an appreciation for rugged, unkempt natural scenery, and all used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the stark beauty and vibrant colour of the Ontario landscape.

Thomson's art bears some stylistic resemblance to the work of such post-impressionists as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, whose work he may have known from books or visits to art galleries. Other key influences were the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, styles with which he would have been familiar from his work in the graphic arts.

For artist and Thomson biographer Harold Town, the brevity of Thomson's career hinted at an artistic evolution never fully realized. He cites the oil painting Unfinished Sketch as "the first completely abstract work in Canadian art," a painting that, whether or not it was intended as a purely non-objective work, presages the innovations of Abstract expressionism.^[6]

Legacy and influence[link]

The Tom Thomson Memorial Cairn, Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park

The Tom Thomson plaque in Leith, Ontario

Since his death, Thomson's work has grown in value and popularity. In 2002, the National Gallery of Canada staged a major exhibition of his work, giving Thomson the same level of prominence afforded Picasso, Renoir, and the Group of Seven in previous years. In recent decades, the increased value of Thomson's work has led to the discovery of numerous forgeries of his work on the market.

In September 1917 the artists James E. H. MacDonald and John W. Beatty, assisted by area residents, erected a memorial cairn at Hayhurst Point on Canoe Lake, where Thomson died. The cost was paid by MacCallum. It can be accessed by boat. In the summer of 2004 another historical marker honouring Thomson was moved from its previous location nearer the centre of Leith to the graveyard in which Thomson is now buried. In 1967 the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery opened in Owen Sound. Numerous examples of his work are also on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario. Thomson's influence can be seen in the work of later Canadian artists, including Emily Carr, Goodridge Roberts, Harold Town, and Joyce Wieland.

In 1970, Judge William Little published a book, The Tom Thomson Mystery, about his digging up of Thomson's original gravesite in the Mowat Cemetery on Canoe Lake in 1956. He and three companions found a body in what they believed was Thomson's coffin. Medical investigators determined that the body was that of an unknown Native Canadian. However Roy MacGregor has described a new (2009) examination of the 1956 evidence and concluded that the body was actually Thomson, indicating "that Thomson never left Canoe Lake."^[7]

Joyce Wieland based a movie (The Far Shore) on the life and death of Tom Thomson.

Citations[link]

References[link]

Books on Thomson's art include The Silence and the Storm by Harold Town and David Silcox, and several coffee table books by the art expert Joan Murray. Roy MacGregor's novel Shorelines (reissued in 2002 as Canoe Lake) is a fictional interpretation of Thomson's death.

• Boulet, Roger, "The Canadian Earth and Tom Thomson". M. Bernard Loates Cerebrus Publishing, 1982. National Library of Canada, AMICUS No. 2894383
• Lehto, Neil J. Algonquin Elegy Tom Thomson's Last Spring. iUniverse, 2005. ISBN 0-595-36132-3
• Little, William T. The Tom Thomson Mystery. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1970. ISBN 0-07-092655-7
• Littlefield, Angie. The Thomsons of Durham: Tom Thomson's Family Heritage.
• Murray, Joan. Tom Thomson: The Last Spring. Toronto: Dundurn, 1994.
• Poling, Jim Sr. Tom Thomson: The Life and Mysterious Death of the Famous Canadian Painter. Altitude Publishing (Canada), 2003.
• Town, Harold and Silcox, David P. The Silence and the Storm. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Thomson

• The Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• "Death On A Painted Lake: The Tom Thomson Tragedy" at Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History
• "Painting The Myth. The Mystery of Tom Thomson" an Interactive Biography
• An Art Retreat in Canada featuring the lore and lure of Tom Thomson
• Article about Thomson's relation to Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park
• 1970 CBC television program about Thomson's mysterious death
• CBC television program about Thomson's painting, The Jack Pine
• CBC -- Front Page Challenge clip on Tom Thomson's Death
• Dark Pines: a documentary investigation into the death of Tom Thomson documentary (2005)
• "The Legacy of the Group of Seven" Tom Thomson's life art and special gifts
• The Canadian Encyclopedia, Tom Thomson

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011)

Roy MacGregor is a Canadian author of fiction and non-fiction. He grew up in Huntsville, Ontario.^[1] His work tends to focus on Canadian topics; Shelagh Rogers has dubbed him the "heir to Peter Gzowski". He has a longstanding interest in the life of Tom Thomson, and has written both a novel and a biography exploring the artist's life and mysterious death.^[2]

Bibliography[link]

RoyMacGregor talks about Northern Light on Bookbits radio.

• Northern Light. Random House, Canada, 2010.
• Home Team: Fathers, Sons and Hockey
• A Life in the Bush
• Canadians: A Portrait of a Country and Its People
• Canoe Lake
• Screech Owls

References[link]

This article about a Canadian writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Joe Lake
Pitcher
Born: (1881-01-06)January 6, 1881 Brooklyn, New York
Died: June 30, 1950(1950-06-30) (aged 69) Brooklyn, New York
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 21, 1908 for the New York Highlanders
Last MLB appearance
August 25, 1913 for the Detroit Tigers
Career statistics
Win–loss record	62-90
Earned run average	2.85
Strikeouts	594
Teams
New York Highlanders (1908–1909) St. Louis Browns (1910–1912) Detroit Tigers (1912–1913)

Joseph Henry Lake (January 6, 1881 – June 30, 1950) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball from 1908 to 1913. He played for the New York Highlanders, St. Louis Browns, and Detroit Tigers. Lake made his major league debut on April 21, 1908; his final game was five years later on August 25, 1913.^[1] Lake's key pitches were the spitball and the fastball.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)

This biographical article relating to an American baseball pitcher born in the 1880s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Rick Mercer
Rick Mercer, September 2007
Born	Richard Vincent Mercer (1969-10-17) October 17, 1969 (age 42) St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
Website
http://www.rickmercer.com/

Richard Vincent "Rick" Mercer (born October 17, 1969) is a Canadian comedian, television personality, political satirist, and blogger.

Mercer first came to national attention in 1990, when he premiered his one man show Show Me the Button, I'll Push It, or Charles Lynch Must Die at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa. A pointed, satirical political commentary on Canadian life after Meech Lake, Show Me the Button made Mercer a national star as he toured the show across Canada.^{[citation needed]} Mercer came to greater attention for his role in the satirical news show This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and his spinoff special Talking To Americans was the highest-rated comedy special in the history of CBC Television, with 2.7 million viewers.

Television shows[link]

In 1992, he created and performed his second show, I've Killed Before, I'll Kill Again, which was also a popular touring show. Also in that year, he began to work with former CODCO members Cathy Jones, Mary Walsh, and with fellow Newfoundlander Greg Thomey, to create a new television series for CBC Television which became This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

In the first eight seasons of 22 Minutes, Mercer provided some of the show's signature moments, including an Internet petition (on the 22 Minutes website) to force Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day to change his first name to Doris.

Mercer's tightly scripted and performed two-minute "rants," in which he would speak directly to the camera about a current political issue, shot in a style similar to those Denis Leary used in MTV commercials, quickly became the show's signature segment. In 1998, he published a book, Streeters, which compiled many of his most famous 22 Minutes rants. It quickly became a national bestseller. In 2007 he published his second book, Rick Mercer Report: The Book.

In November 2010, Mercer contributed a rant he had previously recorded in 2007 on the subject of teen bullying in high schools to Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project.^[1]

[edit] Made in Canada

Mercer co-created the series Made in Canada, which ran for five seasons on CBC Television from 1998–2003. The show was a fast-paced situation comedy which self-referentially satirized the Canadian TV production industry, often drawing from details of its own production companies and including thinly veiled parodies of contemporary programs. It was syndicated abroad as The Industry and won several Gemini Awards (which were themselves satirized in subsequent episodes.)

[edit] Talking to Americans

One of Mercer's trademark comedy routines on 22 Minutes was Talking to Americans, in which he would travel to a major American city or institution and conduct on-the-street interviews with average Americans regarding Canadian politics, the weather, etc., often with hilarious results as the subject's ignorance about Canada was illustrated. One famous example saw Mercer asking Americans' opinion on whether Canada should change its "20 Hour Clock" to the 24 hour one used by the United States. He received approval from citizens and from the Governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack. On another occasion he got the support of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in calling on Canadians to save the "National Igloo."

Mercer made international headlines in 2000 when he pulled a Talking to Americans stunt on then-presidential candidate George W. Bush. He successfully got Bush to answer questions about non-existent Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine". Bush was not amused at the time, and thereafter refused to accept interviews from the CBC^{[citation needed]}. However, he did make a joking reference to this incident during his visit to Canada in 2004. In the same US election campaign, Mercer asked Democratic candidate Al Gore to promise to visit the "Canadian capital city" of Toronto after his election. Gore did not question Mercer's incorrect identification of the capital of Canada.

In 2001, Mercer co-produced a CBC special based on Talking to Americans, which attracted 2.7 million Canadian viewers—the highest-rated television special in Canadian history. Later, the respected ABC News program Nightline would devote a show to it. This was his last major project related to 22 Minutes—at the end of the 2000–2001 season, he announced his departure from that show. It was rumoured that he had decided to leave because of friction between Mercer and co-star Mary Walsh^{[citation needed]}, although other reasons include focusing on his other television show, Made in Canada. Talking to Americans was nominated for a Gemini Award, but following the 9/11 attacks, Mercer declined the nomination.

[edit] The Rick Mercer Report

In 2003, Made in Canada ended its run as well, and Mercer began to work on a new CBC series, Rick Mercer's Monday Report. Similar in format to 22 Minutes and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the show debuted in January 2004. Also in 2003, Mercer went to Afghanistan to visit the Canadian troops stationed there (See: Operation Athena), resulting in the television special Christmas in Kabul.

Despite reports of a long-standing feud Mercer invited Walsh to appear on Monday Report as a special guest to promote her own series Hatching, Matching and Dispatching.

At the end of its second season, Monday Report was the highest rated arts and entertainment show on the CBC. Mercer has had a who's who from the world of Canadian entertainment and politics appear as guests on his show. Ex-Prime Minister Paul Martin gave him a private tour of 24 Sussex Drive and former New Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent made snow angels with Mercer on Parliament Hill. Other prominent guests were NDP leader Jack Layton; Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper (now Prime Minister); Green Party leader Elizabeth May; then-Conservative MP Belinda Stronach; Conservative MP Peter MacKay; Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams; Olympic gold medallist Kyle Shewfelt; author Pierre Berton; recording artists Jann Arden, Bif Naked, Rush bassist Geddy Lee and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, and Sarah McLachlan; publishing mogul Conrad Black; and former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. When Mercer hosted a relief benefit concert for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, musical guests Barenaked Ladies appeared in a segment Mercer shot backstage completely naked.

Since Mercer launched his own show, he became a regular target of his old show 22 Minutes. Criticism of Mercer focused mostly on his ongoing support of the Canadian Forces and his personal wealth.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, the CBC moved Monday Report to Tuesday nights, which caused the show's name to be changed to The Rick Mercer Report. On his blog, Mercer wrote of the time slot shift that "we ended the season as the highest rated comedy show on the network. Clearly some drastic changes were needed."

A book by Mercer, Rick Mercer Report: The Book, based on his television program, was published on September 25, 2007, by Doubleday Canada. This was Mercer's first book since his bestselling Streeters of 1998, and contained a collection of the best of Mercer's "rants" from the first four seasons of Rick Mercer Report, together with choice moments from interviews for the program and other writings by Mercer. On CBC Radio's Sounds Like Canada on September 21, Shelagh Rogers said of the book that "it's the most fun I've had in bed in a long time." The book entered the Globe and Mail books chart on October 6 at number three. A continuing commercial success, it was number one in the Globe bestseller list in the week before Christmas 2007, and has been reprinted eight times.

An expanded and updated paperback version of Rick Mercer Report: The Book, called Rick Mercer Report: The Paperback Book, was published by Anchor Canada on September 16, 2008 and immediately entered the top ten of the Globe and Mail bestseller list. It continues to sell well and has been reprinted several times.

Other film and television work[link]

Mercer has hosted It Seems Like Yesterday, which examines pop-culture from the 1950s to the 1980s. He has appeared in a few films, including Secret Nation, Understanding Bliss and Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

Awards[link]

Mercer has received more than 20 Gemini Awards for his television work. He has also been a winner of the prestigious Sir Peter Ustinov Comedy Award, presented to him at the 2003 Banff Television Festival. In 1993, Newfoundland premier Clyde Wells honoured Mercer with the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council's Artist of the Year award. In 2004, Mercer was presented with the Governor General's Performing Arts Award. He donated his $15,000 cash prize to the LSPU hall, the theatre in Newfoundland where Mercer performed his early work.

He holds honorary degrees from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, Brock University in St. Catharines, McMaster University in Hamilton, Bishop's University in Sherbrooke, and the University of British Columbia. He received an honorary high school diploma for his outstanding efforts and determination from Landmark East School in Wolfville, Nova Scotia in 1999.^[2]

Mercer was awarded the 30th Annual Bob Edwards Award in Calgary.^[3]

In 2007, he was named honorary colonel of the 423 Maritime Helicopter Squadron, based in Shearwater, Nova Scotia; the squadron flies the Sea King helicopters.^[4][5]

Spokesperson and endorsements[link]

Rick Mercer is co-chair, along with Belinda Stronach, in the Spread the Net campaign, partnered through UNICEF, which kicked off at Brock University on September 10, 2008. Spread the Net provides bed nets for $10 each to prevent the spread of malaria among children in Africa.

In December 2004 Mercer appeared on the commercials advertising the One-Tonne Challenge for the Government of Canada. Mercer also appeared as a model in a national ad for men's clothing store, Harry Rosen, wearing a Canali suit. All of Mercer's fees for the campaign went to Casey House, a hospice in Toronto for people living with AIDS. Casey House was founded by June Callwood, who appeared as a celebrity guest on Monday Report.

In September 2005, Mercer became the national spokesperson for the 2005 Walk For Life, a series of 132 fund-raising walks across Canada that raise money for people living with HIV and AIDS. The Walk for Life is a project of the Canadian AIDS Society.

Mercer has narrated an animated science video on climate change for Science North in Sudbury.

In November 2010, Mercer joined the It Gets Better campaign, a series of videos that aim to help gay and lesbian youth to overcome bullying.^[6]

Personal life[link]

Mercer was born in St. John's, Newfoundland. He dropped out of Prince of Wales High School in St. John's before completing his diploma requirements. However, in 2002 he was presented with an honorary doctor of letters by Laurentian University and in 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Memorial University of Newfoundland.^[7] He was a member of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets when he was in his teen years.

Mercer's partner is television producer Gerald Lunz. Although the romantic relationship came first, Lunz is also Mercer's long-time partner in business, who discovered him, fostered his career, and is currently the executive producer of The Rick Mercer Report. He regards his personal life as private, and says little about it in public beyond acknowledging that he is gay;^[8][9][10] in a 2011 interview on CBC Radio One's The Current, he clarified that he doesn't specifically mention his sexuality on Rick Mercer Report because it's just "not what the show is about".^[11]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Mercer, Rick (2008), Rick Mercer Report: The Paperback Book, Anchor Canada, ISBN 9780385665193, http://books.google.ca/books?id=Ayhl-wbRqRIC&lpg=PA1&dq=Rick%20Mercer%20Report%3A&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=true 
• Mercer, Rick (2007), Rick Mercer Report: The Book, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66518-6, http://books.google.ca/books?id=ltoAqCAEnCMC&lpg=PP1&dq=Rick%20Mercer%20Report%3A&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true 

External links[link]