Ghosts of Canoe Lake: Marcel Dzama at the McMichael Gallery
As a repository of Canadiana in all its splendour, the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg does not disappoint. Sited within 100 acres of majestic forests, the gallery building — with its log and barn-board walls, massive, rough hewn field-stone fireplaces and floor to ceiling plate-glass — is a treasure trove of Group of Seven artworks.
Weirdly, six members of the Group of Seven are interred on the grounds of the gallery, at the McMichael cemetery.
Wait…One is missing…Where is Tom Thomson?
No one knows. And that mystery is at the heart of the current show by Marcel Dzama. The show’s title, Ghosts of Canoe Lake, refers to Tom Thomson’s disappearance, which occured while he was paddling on Canoe Lake, in 1917.
On entering the gallery, a dreamy triptych, filled with colour and wildly imaginative imagery, announces the themes of the exhibition: Tom Thomson himself, his death and subsequent ascendence as the essential Canadian artist; the vividly alive natural world — flooded and on fire — and the strange cast of surreal creatures and characters that reside within it.
Marcel Dzama has declared he is “obsessed with Tom Thomson” and that the show is an homage to the artist who died at the age of 39.
In the center of the Gallery sits a large tent, festooned with oversized polka dots, imagery which Marcel Dzama has been painting for some time.
It really does reference the beautiful little tent that Tom Thomson painted so long ago, when he worked as a Fire Ranger in Algonquin Park. Of course, Marcel Dzama’s tent is a little more circusy, and within, we are presented with another form of the artist’s work: Film.
The film is fun to look at, featuring a whacky plot where Tom Thomson is dispatched and a riotous funeral parade follows. Hillarious, absurdist, Dadaist, surrealist, and yet, like all the paintings and other objects in the show, completely and uniquely Marcel Dzama!
Blue and grinning, looming over the show, is a giant what looks like paper mache moon. It’s so familiar! It’s an image that is repeated in multiple forms in the exhibition. It took me a while to figure out it’s reference to the movie “A Trip to the Moon,” made in the year 1902 by Georges Melies.
The show is rife with art historical references. Picasso’s dove makes an appearance, frequently the sky’s are painted like the turbulent Starry Night imagery of Van Gogh, birds behave as they do in M.C. Escher’s work, the famous Lawren Harris portrait of his wife Bess is reinterpreted by Marcel Dzama, and, the artist Garcia Lorca has several pieces dedicated to him in this exhibition.
But it is the Group of Seven, and Tom Thomson in particular, that has transfixed the artist. Maybe Tom Thomson represents that longing to be close to the grandeur of the Canadian landscape, a desire that is so often a function of simply dwelling in this part of the world.
And yet, as Marcel Dzama acknowledges, at this juncture, the world is turned upside down. The show is quite somber. War and corruption are everywhere. The seas are rising and the forests are on fire.
A book, by Guy Maddin, which accompanies the exhibition, contains the following mournful poem.
When painting the evening,
While the world is unease,
The young northern painter,
Painter of trees.
Your evening has ended,
The moon is out low.
Hit your head upon it,
And sleep in the waters below.
That pale horse rider,
Has come here so soon.
When there’s war on the earth,
And blood on the moon.
— Tom’s Blood Moon, Marcel Dzama
annetteandquebec 
Uh oh, two mistakes. Tom Thomson is spelled without a “p” and died in 1917 at Canoe Lake (yes, mysterious circumstances, current location of his body is unknown, or at least disputed.
The first exhibition of the Group of Seven took place at Art Gallery of Toronto in 1920. I expect the “missing seventh” Group member (not buried at McMichael) is Lawren Harris, who spent his last years in Vancouver.
But yr comments on Dzama are right on :-). Great show.
Thank you so much Peggy!! You are the best! How could I not know the spelling of Thomson?
With regard to the burial, I do think it’s Tom Thomson who is missing. Here’s the list of those buried on site: A. J. Casson, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and Frederick Varley.
Susan. This show sounds and looks totes amaze. Sorry! Lol. Was trying to think of a descriptor that didn’t sound lame. Wonderful. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Otherworldly. I guess the last one is the best ? Thanks for giving us a snippet and some insight.
Thanks for reading Sheila! It’s a really fun show. I hope you get up to Kleinberg to check it out.