Group of Seven trackers revisit Bon Echo

Sep 08, 2011

Photo: Sue and Jim Waddington receive a gift from the Friends of Bon Echo after their presentation in Cloyne

Art enthusiasts, Sue and Jim Waddington, returned to the Cloyne area this month in a continuation of their 30-year cross-country foray tracking down the sites where members of the Group of Seven painted some of the best known and best loved images of the Canadian wilderness.

Their visits here have focused on Bon Echo Provincial Park, where to date they have located the sites where 16 individual works by various Group members were painted. Part of the couple’s recent return visit included two public talks, both sponsored by the Friends of Bon Echo Park which included highlights of their popular powerpoint presentation titled “Following in the Footsteps of the Group of Seven”.

The Waddingtons’ September 3rd presentation at the Pine View Methodist church in Cloyne included an overview of the various methods the couple used to locate the views, which involve searches through the National Archives for works; the scouring of various land and contour maps; and the reading of countless books and letters written by and about the group, which often contain hints as to where the particular views are located.

Last summer the couple had great success on their first visit to Bon Echo Park, when armed with 20 photos of 12 works, they managed to track down six sites in a single day. One was at the tip of a spit that juts out into Mazinaw Lake, from where A.J Casson painted Bon Echo. They also found the location of Arthur Lismer's work titled, The Sheep's Nose, which depicts a part of the rock face now commonly known as Turtle Rock. They also located a second Lismer work depicting an old dock and canoers when they discovered the remnants of the dock, from which they were able to locate the scenery behind.

A winter visit to the park this past February enabled the Waddingtons to place three winter works painted there by A.Y. Jackson, “Winter”, “Bon Echo and Birches” and “Bon Echo”.

On their return this year Jim and Sue managed to locate a number of additional painting sites. These included the sites for the image for the 1916 magaizine cover titled “The Sunset of Bon Echo”, a 1914 magazine cover and the sites of a number of additional Casson works including “Bon Echo, Lake Mazinaw” and Lismer’s “Big Rock, Bon Echo”. Throughout their 30-year career, the Waddingtons have always counted on the help of local residents to assist them in pinpointing the more unusual and hard to locate sites. That was also the case at Saturday’s presentation when members of the audience offered their assistance in locating the specific view of Wreckers Rock depicted in two paintings by Casson, one titled “Lake Mazinaw”, and a second titled “From the Hawk’s Nest”.

To date the Waddingtons have located a total of 200 painting sites all over Canada and their work will soon be published in a book. Prior to this Bon Echo visit, they had travelled to the Yukon, where they were tracking down sites painted there by A.Y. Jackson when he was commissioned by the National Gallery to record the building of the Alaska highway. Not surprisingly, they managed to locate six sites there. Jim said they have no intention of hanging up their hiking boots and canoe paddles anytime soon, and have planned already for a number of trips this fall. “As long as we are able to hike and canoe we will continue on”, he said.

To view their presentation online visit www.groupofseven.ca