Tom Thomson and Canoe Lake

The painter Tom Thomson, whose work helped found the Group of Seven and Canadian art itself, drowned in Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park in July 1917 in circumstances no one has ever settled: a strong swimmer, found with fishing line wound round a leg and a bruise on his temple. Accident, or worse? His body was buried, moved, and maybe not moved. A mystery still argued in the north woods, over water as beautiful as his paintings.