bled before his death. His death was ruled an accidental drowning, though no water was found in his lungs.

Many conspiracies surround his death. Rumors that a violent woodsman was living in the area where Thomson died swept through Canada at the time. Others say that he may have been murdered by poachers, bootleggers, or draft dodgers all taking residence in the woods. All-in-all, we will never know exactly what caused Thomson’s death. All we can do is mourn his loss from this earth and admire the work he left behind. C.W. Jefferys said it best when he stated about Thomson: “He almost became a legend even while alive. Genius is always something of a mystery. His sudden attainment to a masterly technique and a penetrating interpretation of ournorthern landscape, his recluse habits, his general reticence, all marked him as an original character.”

The Group of Seven represents several artists who had worked with Thomson and who banded together in 1920 to paint professionally. The original group included Lawren Harris, J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frank (Franz) Johnston, Franklin Carmichael, Frederick Varley, and A.Y. Jackson. The original group was later joined by A.J. Casson, Edwin Holgate, and L.L. Fitzgerald.

This Group painted with each other, learned from each other’s techniques, and revitalized Canada’s art scene in the 1920’s. Their subject was the rugged Canadian landscape - a place rarely depicted in art at the time.

Many of the Group members had backgrounds in the commercial art world - five of the group having met at a Toronto design firm called