Fly Fishing and The Group of Seven

The Group of Seven is Canada’s most famous art movement. Paintings by members of the group remain, even 100 years later, icons of Canadian culture and identity. Although painter Tom Thomson died prematurely before the Group actually formed, art historian Dennis Reid tracks the beginnings of the Group of Seven art movement to 1911, six years before Thomson’s death, thereby making Thomson an important part of the Group of Seven art movement. The official original members of the Group of Seven include J.E.H MacDonald, Lawren Harris, Franklin Carmichael, Franz Johnson, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley and A.Y. Jackson.

There are two intriguing connections between fly fishing and the Group of Seven. The first is Tom Thomson, and the second, is Alexander Young, A.Y. Jackson’s maternal grandfather and the person after whom Alexander Young Jackson was named.

Notwithstanding Tom Thomson’s mysterious and untimely death at age 39 in Algonquin Park, Thomson produced, in a very short time, a large number of important paintings including Northern River, The Jack Pine and The West Wind. But, it turns out, Thomson really liked to fish, and to fly fish too. Even more interesting, Thomson may have been at the fore front of the concept of matching the hatch, a concept that was just emerging in North America at the time, but one which was going to have a profound influence on the techniques of fly fishing and fly tying in the 20th century.

Born on August 5, 1877, Thomson came by fishing honestly since both his father and his paternal grandfather were avid anglers. Growing up around the small community of Leith near Owen Sound, Ontario, he was encouraged to spend time outdoors hunting and fishing as part of the treatment of a childhood illness. After attending a business school in Chatham, Ontario,  Thomson moved to Seattle where he attended another business school and then worked for a couple of engraving companies. In 1905 Thomson returned to Ontario, moved to Toronto and worked at a series of commercial art companies while also taking art lessons.  While in Toronto, Thomson spent time with his relative “Uncle” William Brodie.

William Brodie was a famous naturalist who was particularly interested in the study of insects, or entomology. He helped found the Toronto Entomological Society in 1878, and from 1903 until his death in 1909, he was the director of the Biological Department at the Ontario Provincial Museum, which later became the Royal Ontario Museum. “Uncle” William was actually a cousin of Thomson’s grandmother.  The time Thomson spent outdoors with William Brodie  spurred on Thomson’s love of the outdoors, and the entomology he learned from Brodie, which included how to properly collect specimens for study, would later stand him in good stead while fly fishing in Algonquin Park.

In 1908 Thomson joined the commercial art firm called Grip Limited located in Toronto where he worked with several eventual Group of Seven members. In May of 1912 Thomson and another Grip employee, H.B. (Ben) Jackson travelled to Algonquin Park. It was their first visit to the Park where, in the next five years, Thomson would produce the body of work that would make him Canada’s best known artist. But on that first visit to Algonquin, Thomson and Jackson came more for the fishing than the painting. And, while he would eventually produce so many important paintings, Thomson’s would remain an avid fishermen and fly fishermen for the rest of his too short life.

For instance, an early Tom Thomson biographer, Blowden Davies, in her 1935 book, A Study of Tom Thomson, relates “Thomson’s name was a by-word in the north among fishermen. Men still  boast of owning fishing tackle that Thomson made for them. One of the first signs of spring in Toronto was remarked as Thomson took down his rods and reels from the walls of his studio and got out his savings of bright oddments to be made into lures. He made his own lines, and feathers and coins were put to work in many an ingenious way to match wits with the wily big fellows of the North. Thomson enjoyed doing the same thing for his friends and he would often offer to overhaul gear even for a chance acquaintance. He considered himself an authority on the subject.” Davies also quotes Group of Seven member J.E.H. McDonald as saying “Tom was not very proud of his painting, but he was very cocky about his fishing”.

Authors Ottelyn Addison (the daughter of Algonquin Park Ranger Mark Robinson) and Elizabeth Harwood say in their 1969 book Tom Thomson, The Algonquin Years, that “Thomson was a fly fisherman of exceptional skill” and the authors quoted Park Ranger Tom Wattie that Thomson “could cast his line in a perfect figure eight and have the fly land on the water at the exact spot planned”.

It is, however, in Audrey Saunders’ 1963 book, Algonquin Story, that we find the most interesting description of Thomson’s fly fishing. “Tom’s skill at fly-casting won him the admiration of the guests at Shannon’s.  They profited often from his success, too, because he frequently brought in a nice catch for Mrs. Fraser to cook for the household. Mark (Robinson) says that nothing delighted Tom more than to go out to a spot where everyone said it was impossible to catch anything, and to return triumphant with two or three good sized fish. He made his own flies and “bugs”, watching to see what insects made the fish rise, and painting his own imitations on the spot”.

It is this reference to Thomson watching to see what insects made the fish rise and painting pictures of them on the spot, presumably so he could tie flies later to match what was hatching, that is especially fascinating. Fascinating because it indicates that Thomson was matching the hatch when that concept was in its infancy in North America.

The origins of the concept of matching the hatch go back to at least 1643 and British author Gervase Markam who recommended catching the flies that were hatching and then imitating the naturals, as closely as your fly tying skill would allow. But it wasn’t until 1836 and British author Alfred Ronalds’ extraordinary book, The Fly Fisher’s Entomology, that the idea of matching the specific insects that were hatching really took a firm hold. Ronalds used scientific nomenclature to describe the insects that the fly angler should be concerned with and, in doing so, he firmly established the link between entomology and fly fishing. The hatches he described, however, were British hatches that weren’t the same as the hatches in North America. North American fly anglers had to wait almost another 100 years, until 1935, when Preston Jennings “the American Ronalds” published A Book of Trout Flies and provided anglers with a good entomological based guide to North American hatches. Meanwhile, we have Tom Thomson matching the hatch in about 1915, twenty years ahead of Jennings’ book.

Paul Schullery, author of the 1987 book American Fly Fishing – A History, notes the dependence on written tradition for our knowledge of “imitation” history and refers to Hugh Sheringham who wrote the introduction to the 1921 edition of Ronalds’ The Fly Fisher’s Entomology.  Sheringham speculated, that because of the dependence on written tradition, there could have been many “mute inglorious Ronalds’” working patiently away on a firm basis of sound knowledge” of the advantages of matching the hatch and the link between entomology and fly fishing. Tom Thomson may have been one of these “mute inglorious Ronalds’” and, while there may have been many other fly anglers who generally understood the link between insects and fly fishing, it is likely that Thomson’s understanding of the link was far more discerning because of the time he spent with renown entomologist “Uncle” William Brodie.

The other connection between fly fishing and the Group of Seven may be even more intriguing because it demonstrates a possible even older example of an Ontario angler knowing and using the link between entomology and fly fishing. This second connection involves Alexander Young, who, again, was Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson’s maternal grandfather. Young’s family came from Scotland in 1834 when Alexander was eleven years of age. The family settled on land through which Mill Creek, a trout stream, ran, in Dumfries Township near Galt, now Cambridge. Young became a teacher and taught school in Galt, St. Thomas, and Berlin, now Kitchener. He was the first principal of the Berlin Central School, which was renamed the Suddaby Public School in 1910 after its second principal, Jeremiah Suddaby.  In his 1938 book, A.Y. Jackson, Albert H. Robson , reports that Alexander Young was also a keen hunter and fly angler who tied his own flies and made his own rods.  But Robson additionally reports that Young was “one of our early Canadian naturalists and an enthusiastic entomologist”.  A.Y. Jackson says in his 1953 autobiography, A Painters Country, that Young’s insect collection was “one of the most complete made in Canada up to that time”. The insect collection was eventually acquired by the Natural History Society of Montreal.  Alexander Young died in 1881.

It is possible that Alexander Young did not combine his interests in entomology and fly fishing, but it is far more likely that he did combine them, and that he was matching the hatch long before Preston Jennings Book of Trout Flies was published, and even before Tom Thomson would have been matching the hatch in Algonquin Park. If so, it is likely that Young was another of those “mute inglorious Ronalds’”. Thus far efforts to track down Alexander Young’s insect collection have proven unsuccessful and the collection has likely been destroyed. However, if the collection did surface it would be very interesting to look at it to determine if it showed a particular focus on mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies, and the other insects fly anglers pay special attention to.  Regardless, Alexander Young’s legacy is secure since A.Y. Jackson acknowledged that he inherited his love of nature—so central to his painting—from his fly fishing, entomologist grandfather.

Selected Bibliography

Addison, Ottelyn and Harwood, Elizabeth.  Tom Thomson: The Algonquin Years.  Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1969

Davies, Blodwen.  A Study of Tom Thomson: The Story of a Man Who Looked for Beauty and for Truth in the Wilderness. Toronto: Discuss Press, 1935.

Jackson, A.Y.  A Painters Country.  Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited, 1958.

Jennings, Preston J.  A Book of Trout Flies.  New York: Crown Publishers, 1970 (reprint – originally published in 1935)

Murray, Joan.  Tom Thomson: Design for a Canadian Hero. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1998.

Ronalds, Alfred.  The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology.  Secaucus: The Wellfleet Press, 1990 (reprint – originally published in 1836)

Robson, Albert H.  A.Y. Jackson.  Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1938

Saunders, Audrey.  Algonquin Story.  Ontario: Department of Lands and Forests, 1963.

Schullery, Paul.  American Fly Fishing: A History.  New York: Nick Lyons Books, 1987