Wilderness, JEH MacDonald & the Spirit

Beaver Dam Algoma JEH MacDonald What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Inversnaid Gerard Manley Hopkins (Roman Catholic priest of the 19th C)

There is a new exhibit at the wonderful McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg called J.E.H. MacDonald: Up Close. https://mcmichael.com/event/j-e-h-macdonald-up-close/ 

MacDonald was one of the Group of Seven painters, which somewhat confusingly numbered more than seven through the years. MacDonald might not be as well recognized as some of the others, such as Lawren Harris and A.Y. Jackson, yet his work deserves this profile.

MacDonald was involved in the junkets into the Algoma wilderness to paint. Harris would hire a train car which was pulled onto a siding so that the group of artist friends could canoe into the nearby lakes and rivers to interpret the rugged beauty.



We have experienced this country, having travelled up the Algoma Central Railway line with a canoe in a boxcar on a couple of occasions. We were able to sit in the boxcar with the door open as we travelled northward, something which is no longer allowed, and the Algoma Canyon is breathtaking. The train stopped at a designated spot in the middle of nowhere. We disembarked to paddle and explore, the first time making the three-day paddle down the Sand River to Lake Superior.

There is a deeply spiritual quality to this part of the province and the Group of Seven broke free from the constraints of European painting norms  and conventions to capture a sense of the hills and forest and water. I hope to get to this exhibit and I know it will be a contemplative experience.