Painting above: "Mowat Lodge/Fraser Lodge", Tom Thomson, 1915. The original painting is currently on display at the Art Gallery of Alberta.
Mowat, a small community on the edge of Canoe Lake, in the southern half of Ontario’s Algonquin Park, grew out of a logging camp abandoned by the Gilmour Brothers Company in the 1890s. By 1917, the community had a much different focus than logging.
Between 1912 and 1912, Tom Thomson used Mowat as his ‘home base’ in the Park, staying in Mowat Lodge (a.k.a. Fraser Lodge). Residents there included visitors from as far away as Europe, cottagers from the United States of America, as well as from Canadian cities such as Ottawa and Toronto. The population of Mowat also included those people who serviced tourists’ needs, such as hotel operators and guides. Park staff watched over all of them, maintaining the safety of the area, and enforcing Park regulations.
