Nature has a way of taking your breath away. Maybe you were watching a sunset, standing on the beach with your toes in the sand as waves crashed on shore. Maybe you were swimming in a lake, craning your neck up to see the mountains above. Moments of grandeur and beauty can form lifelong memories, but when you try to

capture them with a camera, the result is often disappointing. You can't hear the loon calls echo off

of a lake. You can't smell the pine trees or feel the warmth of the sun cut through a chill breeze.

And when you see a picture of that scene on your phone, or even in a

frame, it flattens the experience of being there. It can feel impossible to truly capture moments

like this. But Tom Thompson came close. One hundred years ago, Canadian landscape painter

Tom Thompson had begun painting the scenery of

Algonquin Provincial Park. He carried wooden panels and oil paints, paddling out in a canoe

towards scenes that captured his imagination. He painted water in the weather, trees on lakeshores,

log jams in a creek, rainstorms, and sunsets. With thick dabs of bold color, he captured the

Canadian wilderness like no other artists had before him. And his work was celebrated. He became

sort of a founding father, or patron saint of Canadian art, inspiring generations of artists that

followed. Some have argued Thompson's bright and authentic landscapes would change how Canadians

saw their country and themselves.

But Thompson didn't live to see his country embrace his work, because in July of 1917,

he set out in his canoe in the park that he loved so much and never came back.

Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hello, everyone.

And I'm Danielle. Welcome to the show. So happy you're here.

Yeah. It's your first time. Welcome. It sounds like we're doing a mysterious missing person's case.

Mysterious death. Yes. Oh, okay. Yes. And this one is actually one of the most requested episodes we've ever gotten. We kind of have a running list of top four or five

highly requested subjects, themes, topics, or stories. And this one was kind of the oddball out of

them, at least in my book, because I had never heard of this story and all the others I have. And I'm like, okay, of course it's highly requested. It's such a popular topic. But this one, I'm like, what is, who is Tom Thompson? That sounds made up. Yeah. So I looked into it. I actually know someone named Thomas Thomas. It's close. Thomas Thomas. Yeah. His first name, last name, Thomas.

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