Canadian artist, Tom Thomson climbed into his canoe on July 8th, 1917, a week later his lifeless body was pulled from Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park. The questions surrounding his death have certainly become one of Canada’s greatest mysteries, if you will, our own who dunnit?
Some believe, that Thomson was a depressed, eccentric artist who felt the burdens of his life were far too much to bear any longer. With his art work not selling at a high enough profit, a woman he was not married to possibly being pregnant, was Tom indeed having a crisis of mind out on the Lake? It seems plausible, but on the other hand Tom’s art work was finally being recognized, the love of his life had agreed to marry him and they may have had a baby on the way.
Many more believe Thomson was murder out on Canoe Lake that summer. The night before the fateful canoe trip had begun, Tom and his lady loves brother had fought. Had Tom’s death been an “honour killing” of sorts?
Or, did Thomson die over money? It is believed that the evening of July 7th, Tom was enjoying a few drinks at Fraser Lodge when he and Shannon Fraser fought over money and Fraser hit Tom with the butt of a gun causing a slow hemotoma bleed.
Or, did Thomson, a skilled canoer fall to the fates of the lake and is his death a simple accident as the coroner reported? Remember, the coroner never saw the body and all that he wrote in his report was heresay…