Haunted Ontario 3-Book Bundle. Terry Boyle

Little recorded their experience, “It had been a happy day and ever so lazy. At dusk we were coming home, tired, rested, and at peace with the world. It was a tremendously still evening; you could hear the silence against your ear. The hills made strange, statuesque figures against the haunting orange of the western sky, while the first star set its light akindle, as an alter lamp of the universe against the canopy of the afterglow. Even my guide’s tales ceased, and through my mind drifted fragments of harmonies as if heard from a far away ‘cello.’ Suddenly the voice of my guide shattered the silence. ‘They’re coming out to meet us from the portage.’

      “And turning toward the sunset I saw a man kneeling in a canoe that slowly came toward us. ‘So they are’, I answered. ‘I guess we are pretty late.’

      “My guide turned from his course in order that we might better meet our herald, now a little less than 100 yards (90 metres) away. I raised my voice and called, and waved my hand, while my guide kept paddling toward the camper. But there was no response, for even as we looked the canoe and its paddler, without warning or sound, vanished into nothingness, and on the undisturbed lake were only our lonely selves and the shrieking of a loon.”

      Miss Northway added some observations her mother had left out of the story, “As my mother was coming into the bay by the portage, she saw a canoe and a paddler in a yellow shirt. ‘They’re coming out from the portage to meet us,’ said the guide. The man waved and the guide waved back. Then the paddler, canoe and all, completely vanished.

      “My father and Mr. Taylor Statten, being practical people, on hearing the tale, insisted it had been a mirage, but Lawren Harris was sure it was the spirit of Tom Thomson. His rationale was that those who depart before their time continue to haunt the lands they loved.

      “My mother was inclined to accept Lawren’s interpretation, much to my father’s disgust. A point that was much discussed, but never settled, was what colour of shirt was Tom wearing when he was drowned?”

      For years people have reported seeing a phantom canoeist travelling the waters of Algonquin Park. One moment you see a man paddling a canoe across the way and in the next, he vanishes. Many eye-witness accounts refer to the canoeist as Tom Thomson. One witness to such an event was drawn to paint the experience.

      Doug Dunford is a professional artist best known for his ability to capture the symbols of Muskoka life in high realist style. He lives in the Muskokas.

      Early in his career he was given one of A.Y. Jackson’s easels and one of his old chairs. These were his first connections to the Group of Seven painters, but others followed.

      In the summer of 1980 Doug found himself painting a new sign for Algonquin Park. For two weeks he immersed himself in the natural beauty of the park. Doug has always believed, “You have to live the art in the environment where you work.”

      One evening a social gathering took place at a cottage on Canoe Lake. Doug recalls, “The next morning I decided to go down to the dock. A thick mist was enshrouding Canoe Lake. I just stood on the dock with my camera hanging around my neck, looking. Then I heard this trickling sound like a paddle in the water. Suddenly a person in a canoe emerged from the mist. We made eye contact and then he turned and vanished. For some unknown reason I took his picture just before he turned and disappeared, as abruptly and mystically as he had appeared.

      “In that moment I sensed a strange energy. It took me off guard. I have felt that strange feeling before. I don’t know why I took the picture and began to second-guess the experience. Had it really happened? Would there be anything on the photograph? I didn’t understand why this person had turned so abruptly. Why was someone out on the lake in such fog? Why had he disappeared? I got this strange feeling. Maybe in my own consciousness I made a connection. I do know that I can only connect from my own experience. I knew it was Tom Thomson. I was shocked when the film was developed. There was my phantom canoeist.

      “I was drawn to paint the photograph. A good painting depicts what you have experienced. This photograph was a memory of the moment. The painting chooses you. It is always there. It never leaves. One day something triggers it. Within six months after the experience, I painted it. Then I painted over it. I wasn’t ready. It didn’t feel right.

      “When I told people the story they agreed that it indeed could be Tom Thomson. Six or seven years later I did a small watercolour of that dramatic experience on Canoe Lake.

      “Then one day, during a show in my gallery, a young man walked in. He was going to school out West. This piece of work, entitled ‘The Return of Tom Thomson’, was hanging in the show. The man purchased it. About a year later he wrote to me to say that he bought the painting because he had seen the same man in the same canoe in the park. He had felt it had been a ghost himself. He was amazed to see it hanging in my gallery.”

      On the anniversary of Tom Thomson’s death a few people gather on the shore of Canoe Lake to see if he will appear. There is no question, for those who have seen him, that it is Tom.

      As for Winnie Trainor, she never married and lived in Huntsville until her death. Jane Loftus pointed out that Miss Trainor would often travel to Canoe Lake and place flowers on the grave of Tom Thomson. Perhaps she never married because she knew he was still there with her. If she saw him and communicated with him, she kept it to herself.

      Playwright Stina Nyquist in her Tom Thomson play, The Shantyman’s Daughter, has Miss Trainor say this about herself, “I’m a slob. I’ve been one since that summer a long-time ago. I let my hair go. I have soup stains on my blouse, my stockings are rumpled, and so on and so forth. It’s not that I’m a slob at heart. I’m not a natural-born slob. I just got that way, bit by bit, since that summer. But once every year, on this day, I dress up. I go to the beauty parlour, I put on this outfit, and this hat — if it’s not too windy. I got this dress for a special occasion that didn’t happen …”

      Gaye Clemson, born and raised in Toronto, now resides in Monterey Bay, California. In the early 1950s her father decided to make Algonquin Park a part of his life and purchased a lease on Canoe Lake. In 1954 her father and mother built a cabin on the leased land.

      In the May 2006 issue of The Muskoka Magazine, journalist Meaghan Deemeester wrote an article entitled “Canoe Lake,” highlighting Clemson and the Thomson Mystery.

      The small graveyard overshadowed by an ancient birch stands on a hilltop beyond Canoe Lake. No signs or path marks the way to the cemetery. It remains hidden in the forest.

      “Thomson, who was an avid and accomplished canoeist, died on the lake in July 1917. His body was found several days after his upturned canoe was spotted floating on the lake, and despite a four-inch cut/bruise on his left temple, and fishing line tied around his ankle, the authorities quickly deemed his death an accidental drowning.

      “However, the residents of Canoe Lake feel differently, believing in most cases that foul play was involved. In fact, in the late 1970s, Clemson’s brother found the remains of a paddle stuck in the mud. She says, ‘After washing and careful examination of its weather worn condition and the fact that there was a ‘cut’ out of the blade that looked like it was an exact match to an adult male’s temple, he ascertained that it was in fact Toms’ long-lost paddle and by inference the long lost murder weapon. It hangs to this day, from our cabin ceiling.”

      Her passion for local history and the tragic death surrounding Tom Thomson led Clemson to create the Tom Thomson Murder Mystery Game. According to Deemeester, “In her Murder Mystery Game, Clemson explores some of the conventional theories, mainly the result of other writers’ research, surrounding the death. Some of these include:

      “Winnie Trainor is pregnant, Thomson doesn’t want to marry her; she decides to ‘do him in’ and make it look like an accident or he commits suicide as a way of getting out of marrying her.

      “Shannon Fraser owed him money and Thomson wanted it back in order to get a new suit to marry Trainor. He and Shannon get into an argument, Thomson falls, hits his head on the fireplace grate and