Death on a Painted Lake: Algonquin Provincial Park

In July of 1917 a pioneering landscape painter paddled out onto Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park and never returned. His death was initially ruled an accident, but in the following decades peculiar “evidence” and claims from the locals raised a lot of questions. Theories began to arise that maybe it wasn’t an accident after all. Tom Thomson’s death may have happened nearly 100 years ago, but it remains one of Canada’s most enduring mysteries. For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to the week’s partners! Hello Fresh: Use our link to get up to 10 FREE meals and free breakfast for life. IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping. Soul: For 30% off your order, head to GetSoul.com and use code NPAD. BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  Did you know that if your spouse goes missing, but you don't tell anyone, that's not necessarily a crime? That surprising fact is at the heart of the brand new season of Bear Brook, the award-winning true crime podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm your host, Jason Moon. In season three, A Private Matter, we investigate another New Hampshire mystery. A beloved Christmas tree farmer with dementia vanishes from his small town. His wife never reports him missing. Can he still be found?

• 1:03Speaker 02

  If you knew Jay as well as I do, he's private. He doesn't want everybody to know his business.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  That, I don't believe you.

• 1:14Speaker 04

  I kind of revert back to that Bear Brook saying, what if we were to just come across something? And I wrote down, she said, I found him.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Follow Bear Brook on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:34Danielle LaRock?

  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.

• 2:20Danielle LaRock?

  100 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 and the weather, trees on lake shores, log jams in a creek, rainstorms and sunsets. With thick dabs of bold color, he captured the Canadian wilderness like no other artist 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.

• 3:02Danielle LaRock?

  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.

• 3:40Danielle LaRock?

  Hello, everyone. I'm Cassie. And I'm Danielle. Welcome to the show. So happy you're here. Yeah, if it's your first time, welcome. It sounds like we're doing a mysterious missing persons 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.

• 4:25Danielle LaRock?

  But this one, I'm like, what is, who is Tom Thompson? That sounds made up. Yeah. Oh, I looked into it. I actually know someone named Thomas Thomas. It's close. Thomas Thomas? Yeah. His first name, last name, Thomas Thomas. Yep. Is he our age? Yeah. Why would his parents do that? Keep it simple, I guess. There's no confusion. You can't forget. Yeah. Well, this, of course, is a Canadian-based story and our Canadian fans go hard. So I hope I do this story justice because there were a lot of requests for it. And it's one that I will be very interested to hear

• 5:06Danielle LaRock?

  your final thoughts on because I have kind of my own, I came to my own conclusion, I think, of what I truly believed happened to Tom Thompson. And I think we're going to align. But let me give you all the info first. Great, because this is a story that I know absolutely nothing about. Okay, great. Well, oh, my gosh. Sorry. Total pivot, but I totally forgot to tell you before we get in to this, just quick skirt to the side here. I just looked down at my hands and I see I have a little stamp of a cat on the back of my hand and it reminded me to tell you I stumbled across the craziest thing today.

• 5:52Danielle LaRock?

  What happened? Okay, so I was out. Over the last couple of days, it's transformed into winter completely overnight here in Southern Maine and Chaska has had a really hard time on walks between the salt that isn't pet-friendly on the sidewalks in town and just the extreme cold. He won't go more than five minutes before completely stopping, putting up all his paws and it's just no good. So I went to dig up his little booties and I couldn't find them. So I decided to just go out and get some new ones for him. And so I went to the pet store, grabbed some, you know, rugged, like, hard-soled booties for him, which he absolutely hates. But

• 6:37Danielle LaRock?

  anyway, so as I'm going to park at the pet store, there's All of these signs all over the parking lot for it's like cat show parking like

• 6:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  A cat show?

• 6:49Danielle LaRock?

  So the um space right next to the pet store, pet supply place is it must have been like one of those like spirit of Halloween rents out in whatever. It's just kind of like an empty spot in a strip mall. Well, the International Cat Association has overtaken it for two days. And it is legitimately a catch where people come from all over. And there's judges in booths judging cats.

• 7:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow.

• 7:20Danielle LaRock?

  And there's so these are fancy cats. Very fancy. So I walk in. At first I'm like, is this just something for cat lovers? Like a little like holiday cat market? I don't know. I didn't know what to expect.

• 7:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  It sounded like an adoption event or something at first. Yeah.

• 7:34Danielle LaRock?

  And so that's kind of what I thought. And I walk in immediately. I'm like, oh, no, there's ribbons everywhere. There's judges in like formal attire. They're holding up the cats, like stretching them up and like looking at like what is happening? So I paid my sixteen dollars to

• 7:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Watch this event?

• 7:52Danielle LaRock?

  Crazy. Um, yeah. And there's all these different categories for different like, I don't know, best in obviously there's best in show, but then there's like best kitten and best bangle. And there's just all these cats are just so beautiful and all their handlers are there and just like at each

• 8:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  New retirement goal for me. I want to hold up my precious kitty.

• 8:17Danielle LaRock?

  Like look at him.

• 8:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Everybody. Look at him. Look how cute he is.

• 8:22Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 8:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Look at it.

• 8:23Danielle LaRock?

  I was like, what are they? What are they looking for? You know, it's like a dog show, you know, on, is it on the Super Bowl day or Thanksgiving?

• 8:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, the the Puppy Bowl.

• 8:34Danielle LaRock?

  No, but there's like an AKC Best in Show dog thing. It just happened. Either way, I don't know. I just have never. I never thought I would come in contact with an event like that, especially

• 8:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Did you love it?

• 8:46Danielle LaRock?

  I enjoyed it for like 20 minutes and then I left because I

• 8:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  It was enough.

• 8:53Danielle LaRock?

  I had my fill. Um.

• 8:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  You saw the cats.

• 8:55Danielle LaRock?

  I did. Um, they were really cool. And there were some

• 8:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Did they have outfits?

• 9:00Danielle LaRock?

  No, the judges were in outfits, festive ones. They had like some like holiday cat ears on and stuff. Yeah.

• 9:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  I would love to be a judge.

• 9:09Danielle LaRock?

  Like, how does one become a judge? But yeah, and I get it. I pay my admission fee. They're like, would you like a program? I'm like, oh, this is legit. Yeah. I'm surprised it wasn't televised.

• 9:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  What did it? Maybe it was.

• 9:21Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Either way, so that's just a little, um, it was cute. I had my little kitty Phil. But anyway. Okay, Tom Thompson, what the people want. Enough about cats.

• 9:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  What everyone came for.

• 9:36Danielle LaRock?

  Correct. Well, the mysterious death of Tom Thompson is one of Canada's most enduring mystery, and the story has taken on an entire life of its own. If you are in the art world or from Canada, you have likely heard of Tom Thompson. His paintings are celebrated by the art world in traveling exhibits and museums. And if you haven't seen them, you should look them up, especially if you're into art. And I, while I was browsing a lot of his work online, I really thought of you because his artistic style is something that I think you would really be drawn towards. He uses a ton of really bold, bright colors and the landscapes are just so beautiful. And it kind of reminds me

• 10:19Danielle LaRock?

  of the piece that you got when we were at the art festival in.

• 10:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  In Banff?

• 10:25Danielle LaRock?

  Banff, yes.

• 10:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, yes. Cool. Yeah, I love, I appreciate art so much and I love the landscape, bright colors. I add some color to my walls, kind of vibe.

• 10:37Danielle LaRock?

  Well, you might want to look into getting one of his prints then, um, because they're really cool. I especially love the ones of the Northern Lights, which I know is up your alley too. But if you are not familiar with Tom Thompson and you type his name into Google, the first results will likely not be about his art, but his death, which came at the height of his artistic talents and was reported as an unfortunate accident. But over the years, the story began to take on a life of its own and has firmly rooted itself as one of Canada's most enduring mysteries. So let's dive in. Tom Thompson was born on August 5th, 1877 in Claremont, Ontario, the sixth child of 10. As a boy, he developed. A respiratory illness that kept him out of school for about a year.

• 11:23Danielle LaRock?

  And the orders were given to him from their family doctor that he needed to restore his health through fresh air and exercise. And I'm actually kind of surprised he didn't instruct him to move west for the fresh mountain air, because I feel like that was the prescription every doctor gave everyone at this time. But he didn't. He grew up out east along Lake Huron's Georgian Bay. He likely spent all that time outdoors, uh, in the water, fostering what would become a lifelong appreciation for the natural world. He and his siblings took interest in drawing and painting, as a lot of young kids do. Tom really enjoyed sports like football and swimming and spent his Sundays,

• 12:08Danielle LaRock?

  like many others in his community, attending church. As a young man, he began searching for his place in life, working briefly as a machinist in his hometown before following one of his brothers to business school out in Seattle when he was around 24 years old. But after just six months in business school, he landed a job at a photo engraving firm, a company that reproduced images and illustrations for magazines, books, and newspapers. It was a creative work, and he developed skills as a graphic designer, illustrator, and letterist while he was working there, and he was really, really good at it. In his late twenties, he moved back east towards home, landing in Toronto, where his newfound skills were in high demand.

• 12:49Danielle LaRock?

  He found work at multiple firms and made friends with a number of fellow designers and artists. And it was with those friends that he began to leave the city of Toronto and explore the Canadian wilderness. And I kind of thought of it as like how we found each other, our outdoorsy coworkers. You know, we're like, okay, with you, I'm gonna go hike. And that's kind of what he found with these coworkers. And in May of 1912, Thompson and a friend traveled by train to Algonquin Provincial Park, about 200 miles away from Toronto, to fish, paint, camp, and hang out.

• 13:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  Sounds lovely.

• 13:28Danielle LaRock?

  It does, yeah. Wagon in undeveloped region had only recently been added to the province of Ontario and Thompson seemed to love it. That same summer, he and some friends would head north once again for a two-month canoe voyage, leaving with hundreds of pounds of provisions and art supplies, and returning home with paintings and plenty of stories of all of their adventures. On this particular canoe trip, Thompson seemed to realize that these northern landscapes were excellent subjects for oil painting, and his friends had begun to recognize his talent, encouraging him to pick up his brush more and more often. Tom, while likely happy to feel encouragement from his friends and probably felt good to have his work praised,

• 14:11Danielle LaRock?

  he didn't really see his paintings as anything that deep. He kind of brushed it off and laughed it off, thinking that his sketches and his paintings would never really be taken seriously and just brushed everything off. It's like, thank you so much, but it's not really going to go anywhere. Just something I like to do.

• 14:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  We love a humble king.

• 14:31Danielle LaRock?

  Yes. Yep.

• 14:34Danielle LaRock?

  However, after seeing some of Thompson's sketches from his canoe trip, Dr. James McCollum, a wealthy Toronto doctor and eager patron of the arts, convinced Thompson to develop some pieces for a gallery display. So he saw potential in Tom and really fostered that. The following year, a painting of Thompson's titled Northern Lake was accepted into an exhibition in Ontario and was purchased by the government for $250, which was equivalent to about two months' worth of his wages at the time. So, not too shabby for something you don't take super seriously.

• 15:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it's just a hobby.

• 15:11Danielle LaRock?

  Right, side hustle. And this was all the encouragement that Dr. McCollum needed. To allow Thompson to paint full-time, he promised him a guaranteed income by purchasing his paintings.

• 15:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow.

• 15:24Danielle LaRock?

  From then on, Thompson was a painter, despite feeling, what I think we would categorize as imposter syndrome today. Starting with the summer of 1913 at age 36, he would spend the warm months of the year in Algonquin Provincial Park. Often sleeping in a tent by night and painting small sketches by day to take in the scenery. And for those of us unfamiliar with this particular park, I'll give you a glimpse into what Thompson was seeing. Established in eighteen ninety-three, originally named Algonquin National Park and later changed to Algonquin Provincial Park in nineteen thirteen, it was the first provincial park in Canada. Located on the Canadian Shield, northeast of Toronto and northwest of Ottawa,

• 16:05Danielle LaRock?

  the park encompasses nearly three thousand square miles of forests, bogs, lakes, and rivers. Its coniferous forests, maple hills, rocky ridges, wildflower meadows, and spruce bogs are teeming with classic northeastern wildlife. Moose, black bear, wolves, beaver, kinda has it all. The interior of the park has no roads and can only be explored by paddle or on foot. But other areas of the park, as of now, do offer campgrounds, there's a visitor's center, there's an art center, lodging, etc. And the park is popular year round. There's activities like wildlife photography, snowshoeing, fishing,

• 16:47Danielle LaRock?

  and canoeing being amongst the most popular. So, all in all, not too bad of a place to fall in love with. In the winters, Tom would work in a studio in Toronto to turn his favorite sketches into full-size paintings fit for sale and exhibition. He shared a space with fellow artists who encouraged his artistic journey and helped him develop his own artistic, unique, style. And in a period of just a few short years, Thompson did just that. His scenes of Algonquin Park became brighter and more complex. He rendered windswept trees and racing clouds with big, blocky shapes, using thick strokes of bold paint that one critic would call "a fearless use of violent color."

• 17:33Danielle LaRock?

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• 18:56Danielle LaRock?

  Although Thompson had made a ton of progress in developing his artistic style, his paintings were slow to find a broad audience. He did catch the attention of various artists, and of course, that patron, Dr. McCollin, like, really believed in him, and he would get paintings picked up here and there, but he didn't, like, shoot into stardom by any means. With meager income from painting sales to make ends meet, he began to work on the side as a fishing guide and, for one season, as a fire ranger within Algonquin Park. Yet throughout his financial concerns, rainstorms that soaked through his tent, and clouds of mosquitoes, Thompson kept on painting. For five summers, he returned to Algonquin Park, free of the loud noise-

• 19:41Danielle LaRock?

  An industrial hum of Toronto and set out to capture the landscapes that had taken hold of his imagination and his heart. He would paint pieces like the Jack Pine and the West Wind that would later become icons of Canadian art. Yet he remained self-conscious of his artistic ability, writing once in a letter, "The best I can do does not do the place much justice in the way of beauty." It's like, don't be too hard on yourself. We can't even do that with our iPhones now, let alone painting it by hand.

• 20:12Cassandra Yahnian?

  Painting is such a talent.

• 20:14Danielle LaRock?

  I know.

• 20:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  And when you see really good painters and they are putting in so much detail. I mean, I try to paint something and I can't even, I can't even, it looks like a second grader did it.

• 20:26Danielle LaRock?

  I can really, I can very much.

• 20:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's a lot of talent in that. So to be able to do anything that looks good in the end.

• 20:36Danielle LaRock?

  That remotely even captures a sliver of what you're seeing, that's a win.

• 20:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Gold star.

• 20:44Danielle LaRock?

  I actually have a, I don't have many things of my dad's, but I do have, he was, he loved to paint.

• 20:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, really?

• 20:52Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, he loved to paint and he did a lot of different, he would just buy, you know, like standard sized little canvases and whatever, just paint. And I have one, I don't know what happened to most of them, but I vividly remember grabbing one of them and he titled it "The Wave" and he signed it at the bottom and it's just a, it looks like a stormy sea scene and it's black and green and it looks like just a wave of like foamy ocean crashing on the shore. And I framed it and I have it hanging in my bedroom.

• 21:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, I love that.

• 21:30Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, it's really cool. He didn't really pass that on to me, that ability.

• 21:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  But you can appreciate.

• 21:38Danielle LaRock?

  I can, yeah. So while Tom was in the park during the summer, he would often camp or he would use Moat Lodge on the shores of Canoe Lake within the park as his home base. He became relatively well-known to the locals as a struggling artist that would come to the lake to fish and paint and explore and work as a guide. And he did make friendships and maybe some enemies throughout his years on the lake. Shortly before 1:00 PM on July 8th, 1917, a hot and sunny summer day, perfect for painting, Tom, like he had done hundreds of times before, untethered his canoe from the dock in front of the Moat Lodge, climbed in and set off. He paddled his way into the lake and never came back.

• 22:23Danielle LaRock?

  Within hours, his canoe was actually noticed, found floating upside down in the lake, abandoned, although it was apparently mistaken for a canoe owned by a nearby hotel and ignored. By the following day, when Thompson had still not returned to his room, park ranger Mark Robinson was notified of Thompson's absence. Robinson had seen Thompson the previous morning and assumed that he was just out fishing a little longer than planned, but on the off chance he'd run into trouble or twisted his ankle, got injured, just needed some assistance, he organized some men to search the shorelines. Over the next seven days, the search for Tom expanded. They recovered his upturned canoe, although no sign of what happened to him could be

• 23:07Danielle LaRock?

  found inside, just his paddles tied up for portage and the food that he had packed. Men were sent to the nearby town of Huntsville in case Thompson had gone there for whatever reason, but turns out he hadn't. Local guides were hired to search on land and from the water, but no trace of Tom was found, until a visiting doctor named Goldwyn Howland was lounging on the front porch of his cabin on Little Wapomeo Island when he noticed something pop out out of the water. It was Tom's body, bloated and decomposing. Eight days after he went missing and just a third of a mile from where he had set out initially, Thompson was found. Dr. Howland had been vacationing at a cottage on Canoe

• 23:49Danielle LaRock?

  With his daughter when he made this discovery and he quickly alerted everyone. Soon, the search team towed the body to shore, secured it there and notified the local coroner. The following day, faced with the heat of summer and a still absent coroner who just hadn't showed up yet, Ranger Mark Robinson decided to have the body examined by Dr. Howland, this guy.

• 24:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I guess if you have a doctor, but I don't, what's he a doctor?

• 24:17Danielle LaRock?

  I'm on vacation.

• 24:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  I that too.

• 24:19Danielle LaRock?

  It's like, sir, I'm a dentist.

• 24:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  So they just have him. It's like, well, that actually might be.

• 24:26Danielle LaRock?

  I'm a podiatrist. I can't.

• 24:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, I'm not, I'm not here for this.

• 24:32Danielle LaRock?

  But yeah, he stepped up. He's like, I am a doctor, you know?

• 24:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  And just for clarification, has he just been sitting outside?

• 24:39Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 24:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  His body?

• 24:41Danielle LaRock?

  They pulled it in, tethered it to the shore and just left it and waited. There's a lot of things that you're gonna question throughout this story of like.

• 24:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  What? What year is this?

• 24:51Danielle LaRock?

  1917.

• 24:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, okay. That makes more sense.

• 24:55Danielle LaRock?

  So in Howland's report, he describes advanced stages of decomposition, what he believed was a bruise on Thompson's temple and blood coming from one of his ears. Noting that the body showed no obvious signs of violence, he ultimately concluded the cause of death had been an accidental drowning. Because Thompson's body had been in the lake for over a week and they had no place to store it while waiting for the coroner, aside from just on the sand.

• 25:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  On the beach.

• 25:24Danielle LaRock?

  A decision was made to promptly bury the remains in the local cemetery along Canoe Lake. They hired an undertaker and Thompson was buried on July 17th.

• 25:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Does he have any family?

• 25:35Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, and we'll get into that.

• 25:36Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay.

• 25:37Danielle LaRock?

  While this had surely seemed the best course of action for the small community with very little options, rattled by the loss of their friend, it did cause some complications. First was that when the coroner finally arrived that same evening, Thompson's remains had just been interred in the ground. Although the coroner would meet with Dr. Howland, Robinson, the park ranger, and local witnesses that night ultimately agreed with the verdict of an accidental drowning. Sight unseen.

• 26:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, but you had a doctor examine him that doesn't specialize in this at all.

• 26:11Danielle LaRock?

  And it's just, I can't stress this enough. He's on vacation with his kid.

• 26:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. And he probably, he doesn't have any supplies or tools with him.

• 26:21Danielle LaRock?

  Right. They're not doing like, he didn't do a full exam. Like this is, he's literally just giving him a once over. And he's like,

• 26:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's like, this is what I think happened.

• 26:29Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wait for the coroner.

• 26:30Danielle LaRock?

  Right. The next issue was that Thompson's family over a hundred and fifty miles away had been notified of their son's death and had sent instructions to send his body home for burial, but those wishes weren't communicated in time before Thompson was buried at Canoe Lake.

• 26:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, they buried him so quick.

• 26:46Danielle LaRock?

  So fast. It's like one day later, it's like the, it's like, okay, your letter is going via Pony Express. Okay. We're not like, it's gonna take some time.

• 26:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  You can't just pick where this man is buried with no consultation of his family.

• 27:01Danielle LaRock?

  I feel like, and again, like,

• 27:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like you can't leave him on the beach. You gotta move him somewhere, but.

• 27:07Danielle LaRock?

  Put him in like a boat shack or s- or just something. I understand you don't want a decomposing body.

• 27:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  Did morgues exist in nineteen seventeen?

• 27:16Danielle LaRock?

  Very remote.

• 27:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Brought him to a.

• 27:18Danielle LaRock?

  Like, yeah, they could have transported him a hundred and fifty miles or whatever to Toronto and think, but yeah. Again, there are a lot of what the hell is going on.

• 27:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Year. I mean, it's not like there were modern vehicles that could take him there.

• 27:34Danielle LaRock?

  I mean, okay, we'll get into it. You're gonna, yeah, yeah.

• 27:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, it's very odd. Very odd. Uh, if someone buried me.

• 27:43Danielle LaRock?

  Well, we all know you don't want to be buried.

• 27:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  But like, what if I died and someone didn't, and then they just buried me not knowing I'm claustrophobic?

• 27:52Danielle LaRock?

  That's a risky run, I guess.

• 27:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  When you die, I guess.

• 27:56Danielle LaRock?

  I, you just need to make your wishes clear and I'm still unclear on what they are. So.

• 28:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, if you're unclear, just know I am also unclear.

• 28:06Danielle LaRock?

  Then confusing.

• 28:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  You things all the time.

• 28:08Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, of what not to do.

• 28:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  What not to do and how I want people to act at my funeral.

• 28:14Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I got that down pat. Yeah, you don't have to worry about that. It's just the, your physical remains that still needs to be. Uh, figured out. Well, one day later, on July 18th, the Thompsons hired a second undertaker to exhume their son's grave on Canoe Lake and transport his remains back to Owen Sound by train, which was his hometown, like that was where he lived, his hometown. The undertaker arrived that afternoon and reportedly worked alone and through the night. He transferred the remains into a new metal-lined casket fit for rail travel and refilled the Canoe Lake grave with the old casket still inside, just now, empty. On July 19th, he accompanied the body back to Owen Sound, where Thompson's family

• 28:57Danielle LaRock?

  held a private funeral service and buried Tom in the family plot. He was just 39 years old. So this is the story of Thompson's death as it was recorded in 1917. Documented in letters exchanged between Canoe Lake residents and the Thompson family, official documents signed by Dr. Howland and the visiting coroner, and detailed entries in Ranger Mark Robinson's diary. The details and conclusions of these firsthand accounts represent the official story that Tom Thompson drowned after an unfortunate accident. But in the years following Thompson's death, many grew dissatisfied with this explanation of a supposed accidental drowning and began to suggest new ideas.

• 29:39Danielle LaRock?

  The first thing each theory of Thompson's death points out is that he was believed to be an excellent swimmer and an expert paddler. So there's just no way that he could have drowned in a lake that he paddled so many times and had so much experience within. And that I wanted to state because it comes up time and time again in various sources as kind of like, there must be another explanation because that couldn't possibly be it. And I think it goes without saying that anyone, especially our listeners, our listener base knows that it doesn't matter how experienced you are and you know,

• 30:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Accidents can happen.

• 30:19Danielle LaRock?

  Anything can happen.

• 30:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  To anyone.

• 30:21Danielle LaRock?

  To anyone at any time. And, and we'll get into it a little bit more too, uh, later on. But yeah, I mean, it kind of just goes without saying.

• 30:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  I mean, you can be the best of the best. And still some something obscure thing can happen or a weather event or whatever it is, something can happen and and not to say you shouldn't be experienced because it doesn't matter, but right, it can truly happen to anybody.

• 30:46Danielle LaRock?

  So then aside from that, that's kind of like the first thing that's foundational like, yeah, well, we have to look into this because it couldn't possibly be that. They next point to the bruise that Dr. Helen reported on Thompson's head. Maybe that's an indication of foul play that was initially overlooked. The official story was that Thompson must have slipped and hit his head, and that resulted in the bruise and some of the blood coming out of his ear. But maybe someone struck him over the head with a paddle or another blunt force object. They point to Thompson's first gravesite on Canoe Lake. Had his body ever been removed from Algonquin Park? That that second undertaker had worked alone under the cover of night.

• 31:27Danielle LaRock?

  There was no other witnesses and there were rumors that circulated around of the the railroad workers that were handling his casket, saying that his coffin was much lighter than they would have expected for it to be if somebody's

• 31:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  A man his size.

• 31:44Danielle LaRock?

  Was in there.

• 31:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, interesting.

• 31:47Danielle LaRock?

  So basically, people are like, is he still in Algonquin Park? And if so, like, why is that still, is there so many?

• 31:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  Something fishy is going on here, maybe with the park.

• 32:01Danielle LaRock?

  Right. Is there a cover up? Is there something going on like what like, what is the truth? And finally, each theory starts to point fingers at Thompson's neighbors. Who were they? What motive could they have had to harm him? How did he wind up dead in the middle of Canoe Lake?

• 32:21Danielle LaRock?

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• 33:03Danielle LaRock?

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• 33:49Danielle LaRock?

  When you ignore the official ruling of an accidental death, three leading theories essentially emerge: murder, suicide, and a cover-up. And each version has a different person at its center. So let's get to know them. The first is Martin Blatcher Jr., a German-American tourist. The Blatcher family owned a cottage near Canoe Lake, and he had been staying in Algonquin Park that summer. Martin and his sister Bessie were actually the first ones to spot Thompson's upturned canoe after his disappearance. And when they asked why they failed to report it, they said they assumed that it was just a drifting canoe that belonged to the lodge or a nearby, you know, cabin and just ignored it. So that was where that initial sighting came from.

• 34:33Danielle LaRock?

  Blatcher was not well-loved by the Canoe Lake community. Some accused him of being a draft dodger. And for context, just remember, I know I said this happened in 1917, but all these events are unfolding during World War I. Park Ranger Mark Robinson, who returned from military service in the spring- of nineteen seventeen, wrote in his diary that he suspected Bleacher of being a German spy, although he never elaborated on why. And in many versions of the story, Thompson and Bleacher argued over the war. It's claimed that Thompson tried several times to join up with the war effort, only to be turned away. And before we get into kind of the rabbit hole of not only this angle, but the others to come, there's a lot of different conflicting

• 35:18Danielle LaRock?

  statements and theories and, you know, players in this story, but essentially there's one constant, and that constant is that there are conflicting explanations for nearly every detail of this story.

• 35:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Interesting.

• 35:33Danielle LaRock?

  Which makes it not only compelling, but also confusing. And it adds to, in my mind at least, why the story is just so, um, it's still such a thing. I mean, a hundred years later, it's still talked about. It's still this enduring mystery. And I mean, a lot of

• 35:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, the lack of investigation and just, it feels like the lack of care of his body afterwards leaves room for so many questions.

• 36:01Danielle LaRock?

  Well, that and there's just so little details of what we actually verified. We know, like for a fact happened. Everything else is a maybe, question mark. Some people are saying, yeah, some people are saying, no, there's all these different versions. So just a blanket statement here from here on out. Everything that I'm about to say has probably two or three versions to it.

• 36:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay.

• 36:25Danielle LaRock?

  But whatever the case may be, the theory is that Thompson and Bleacher, possibly with alcohol involved, fought over their differing opinions about World War One, which led Bleacher to attack him. Or the two men might have been fighting over our next character, Winnie Trainer. Winifred Trainer, who went by Winnie, was the daughter of a lumber foreman who leased a cabin on Canoe Lake. After Thompson's body was discovered, she quickly helped communicate with the Thompson family, calling his sister Margaret, reaching out to the local undertakers, and arranging for his body to be removed and transported home. In letters she sent in the following month, she made it clear that Thompson Since death weighed really heavily on her, writing, quote, "It seems like two years instead of two months since Tom was drowned."

• 37:10Danielle LaRock?

  By all accounts, Traynor thought the world of Thompson and had gotten to know him during his summers that he spent in Algonquin Park. But according to some versions of the story, Traynor was eager to marry him. Again, conflicting details here, but some versions say that they were already engaged. Some say that she was pressuring him to get married. Others claim that she was pregnant with his child. And, you know, again, a lot going on here.

• 37:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  It feels like a lot of rumors, like a lot of oral histories coming together.

• 37:41Danielle LaRock?

  Yep, and this won't be the first. In any event, the theories claim that Thompson may have liked Winnie, but he didn't want to marry her or become a father. And whether he was afraid to say no or didn't want to own up to becoming a dad, he ended his own life over this whole situation with Winnie. And that's where the suicide.

• 37:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  That feels farfetched.

• 38:01Danielle LaRock?

  Extreme. It feels really extreme.

• 38:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  I mean, not to pee dark, and this is dark anyway, but especially in the early 1900s and today, there are lots of men who impregnate women and then just never take care of them.

• 38:17Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 38:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, what would be stopping him from just ignoring them?

• 38:21Danielle LaRock?

  Right. Some have raised other motives for suicide, including conflicted feelings over the war, his struggles as an artist. But most people do point the finger at Winnie for this.

• 38:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it's always a woman's fault.

• 38:36Danielle LaRock?

  It's like she was so awful to him and he felt so much pressure. Yeah.

• 38:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, unless she murdered him, don't be like, she hurt his feelings, so.

• 38:45Danielle LaRock?

  Well, she did. She just really wanted to be with him and he didn't want to be with her, as they say.

• 38:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  That doesn't make any sense, like.

• 38:52Danielle LaRock?

  I know that. I know.

• 38:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  She didn't reject him. So she didn't hurt his feelings. She didn't reject him.

• 38:58Danielle LaRock?

  No.

• 38:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  All she did was want to be with him and maybe be pregnant with his child, and that's her fault for him dying?

• 39:05Danielle LaRock?

  As the theory suggests, yeah.

• 39:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  No, get out of here. I already, I mean, I don't even know the other explanations yet, and that's no.

• 39:14Danielle LaRock?

  I think we can go ahead and scratch that.

• 39:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Unless Winnie killed him because he rejected her.

• 39:20Danielle LaRock?

  Which is not the case.

• 39:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  Winnie is free Winnie.

• 39:24Danielle LaRock?

  Justice for Winnie.

• 39:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  And, yeah, justice for Winnie.

• 39:27Danielle LaRock?

  Well, finally, the third person commonly accused as having a connection to Tom's death is a man named Shannon Frazier. Frazier had moved to Canoe Lake to sell the assets of a defunct lumber company, but he and his wife Annie decided to stay and open the company's former employee lodge as a tourist attraction called the Moat Lodge. In addition to frequently staying at the lodge, Tom helped the Fraziers with occasional tasks and became quite good friends with Shannon. Frazier was also the last person to report seeing Thompson alive the morning of July 8th, watching him depart by canoe. After a day passed, he raised the alarm after Thompson failed to return, and after Thompson's body was found, he also arranged for the hasty burial in the local cemetery.

• 40:11Danielle LaRock?

  However, some voiced suspicions about Shannon. For one thing, he was accused of concealing the telegram from the Thompson family about their specific burial instructions, which makes his role in arranging this local burial a little more suspect. Others would also report that Frazier had owed Thompson money. In a letter to the executor of Tom's estate, Winnie noted that Thompson loaned Frazier $250 for canoes, although she said Frazier had repaid the debt in little bits. Nevertheless, some argued that the two had fought over money, leading Frazier to cover up Thompson's death, a claim that we will return to in a little bit.

• 40:52Danielle LaRock?

  Also, another important note did not emerge all at once, but piece by piece in the decades to come, and for a time, they were largely ignored. The official story was accepted, only challenged by the occasional poorly selling book, and that is until 1956. Almost forty whole years after Thompson's death, a group of men took matters into their own hands. Men who had grown up camping and cottaging in Algonquin Park and who were familiar with the Tom Thompson story, or mystery as they dubbed it, and who decided they wanted to find some answers for themselves. In September of 1956, they started digging holes around the cemetery at Canoe Lake.

• 41:37Danielle LaRock?

  Searching for the unmarked and supposedly empty former grave of Tom Thompson.

• 41:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, wow. This is like an internet sleuths before internet sleuths existed.

• 41:50Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, they're like, we, we gotta find out for ourselves. We've had enough.

• 41:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Getting in the field. Yeah. Like, we're gonna find out if he's buried in the park or not.

• 41:57Danielle LaRock?

  Well, they're digging, digging up them holes, digging, digging, you know?

• 42:04Danielle LaRock?

  Well, the first two holes that they dug up were empty, but in the third, after digging about four feet down, they found something. They found human remains.

• 42:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  A four foot grave?

• 42:15Danielle LaRock?

  Well, I guess that undertaker was feeling lazy.

• 42:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  Very.

• 42:21Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know if when six feet got standardized or if it is standardized and it, I'm not sure, but.

• 42:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  I don't know. Four feet seems pretty shallow.

• 42:30Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Well, regardless, someone's in there. And if you stop to wonder about, I don't know, perhaps the ethics of digging around in.

• 42:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Digging up an old.

• 42:39Danielle LaRock?

  A graveyard.

• 42:42Danielle LaRock?

  This group did too, but just not for very long. The official story was that Thompson's body had been removed, so there was no reason to expect that they would ever find a body. They're like, we're just checking to make sure.

• 42:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's no grave site here. No one's even here anymore.

• 42:57Danielle LaRock?

  No, silly. But they argued if they did happen to find some remains, they would have assumed, they assumed that they would have been forgiven because they discovered the truth.

• 43:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Danielle LaRock?

  So, it's solid, right? It's like, we got an explanation for everything.

• 43:15Danielle LaRock?

  Well, they, so they find human remains and they do, uh, they didn't take it any further on their own. They did contact authorities. And as the police retrieved more bones from the grave site, they removed a skull with a hole in the left temple. A hole possibly right where that mysterious bruise on Tom Thompson's head had been noted.

• 43:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  And the blood coming from his ear.

• 43:37Danielle LaRock?

  The plot thickens. The remains were collected by the police and taken to a lab in Toronto for forensic analysis. One of the four men who dug the hole, a school teacher named William Little, felt vindicated. The hole in the recovered skull had all but confirmed the theories of foul play, evidence that Thompson had been struck in the head, or perhaps even shot. But after a month of analyzing the remains, investigators announced the findings. The bones did not belong to Tom Thompson. They actually didn't even belong to a man with European heritage. They were the remains of an indigenous man, likely in his mid to late twenties. And that hole in the skull? According to the supervising doctor, the clean opening reflected a surgical procedure,

• 44:21Danielle LaRock?

  likely to relieve some pressure on the brain. A gunshot or blunt trauma wound would have caused cracks across the skull that just simply were not there. So, we're up, we think we have Thompson up, we're down, it's someone completely different. In an unmarked grave, and also I do want to know, if you're thinking, like, why would those guys have the explanation of, we didn't think we'd find a body when they're clearly digging in a graveyard where bodies are? Um, they were digging in and around like the outskirts of the fenced in area where marked graves were.

• 44:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  Gotcha.

• 44:57Danielle LaRock?

  Because the original story was that he was in an unmarked grave and the whole thing, so they're

• 45:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  So they're just finding other unmarked graves?

• 45:05Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Regardless of the official conclusion, the gravesite incident had catapulted Tom Thompson into national headlines. William Little, that one of those guys that was digging up the graves, refused to accept the findings and publicly stated that the investigators had made a mistake. It's like, sir, stay in your lane. You're a school teacher.

• 45:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, how would you know that?

• 45:27Danielle LaRock?

  You're not a forensic You know, like, okay, whatever.

• 45:33Danielle LaRock?

  In the years that followed, Little would go to great lengths to advance his version of the story, that Tom Thompson was a victim of foul play. He is doubling down. In 1969, he collaborated with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to produce a docu-drama called, Was Tom Thompson Murdered?, which repeatedly suggested that Thompson's body may still rest in Algonquin Park. This documentary was met with anger and resentment by Thompson's family, who hoped Thompson's story could just be laid to rest, and that his growing profile as an artist wouldn't be tarnished by dramatic or inconclusive mysteries. Residents of Canoe Lake had also grown tired of the unwanted attention, but the speculation

• 46:15Danielle LaRock?

  was only just starting, because Canadians were getting curious. The following year, Little published a book where he officially suggested that Martin Bletcher had murdered Thompson during a drunken fight over the war, or over Winnie Trainer. So that's kind of where that theory took hold. It's all coming back to...

• 46:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's pointing fingers.

• 46:36Danielle LaRock?

  Yes. So that's where this entire thing really began, because the first official story, like, that was never even mentioned. Like, Martin Bletcher was never really in any sort of formal... There was no investigation, because...

• 46:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  He was never a suspect in foul play.

• 46:53Danielle LaRock?

  There was no suspect. Yeah. Yeah. Little and other authors after him drew upon the testimonies of people like Ranger Mark Robinson. Robinson had since passed away, but he spoke on his view of the Thompson case several times over the course of his life. And over time, his stance had changed. In his detailed 1917 journal, he accepted the official verdict and raised no serious concerns. But by the 1950s, in an audio interview, he openly stated his belief that Thompson was a murder victim. His prime suspect was Martin Bletcher, adding new claims about Bletcher's military desertion, which Little would go on to echo in his own book. So,

• 47:32Danielle LaRock?

  he, like, really latched on to this shift in the Ranger's view, and kind of just expanded on it. As Thompson's mysterious death made Headlines, a wave of new information would seem to emerge. Journalists with family ties to Winnie Traynor claimed to speak with authority about her role in things and advanced claims that she was pregnant with Thompson's child. Although, got a note here, Winnie's longtime physician reported that she never mentioned either having a baby or an abortion. And in fact, she never did ever have a child, or marry for that matter. So she's

• 48:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  So it's a completely fabricated, made up story.

• 48:16Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, unless she had a secret abortion somewhere told and like somehow it got out. Which is just so, I don't even really want to give it that airtime because I think it's so ridiculous.

• 48:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:28Danielle LaRock?

  Some presented outlandish and impossible to verify arguments claiming Tom suffered from a rare medical condition called micturation syncope, which essentially causes a man to faint while he's urinating.

• 48:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  So like, he must have had that. Why did you jump to that of all the things?

• 48:47Danielle LaRock?

  It's like, maybe

• 48:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  He could have had a heart attack, he could have had a stroke, he could have. But like, no, he passed out while he was taking a piss off the boat.

• 48:56Danielle LaRock?

  It right.

• 48:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  And would he know that?

• 48:59Danielle LaRock?

  That he had that medical condition?

• 49:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  If he had that medical condition, wouldn't someone know if he was like, yeah, every time I I pee sitting down because every time I pee, I pass out.

• 49:09Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And just also, no one noted, not that anything was really documented at length, clearly. But there is no indication that he was found with his pants down or his fly down or like that would indicate he died while peeing. It's just such a weird

• 49:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  People are wild, people are just throwing shit out there.

• 49:33Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 49:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  Is that even a real medical?

• 49:34Danielle LaRock?

  It is. Yeah, I looked it up.

• 49:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow, that's interesting. I wonder why that's associated.

• 49:40Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know. I, I don't know. It's kind of like, well, it's similar, I guess, to like narcolepsy, you just

• 49:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  Fall asleep.

• 49:47Danielle LaRock?

  Fall asleep all the time.

• 49:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  We had a substitute teacher in high school that had narcolepsy.

• 49:52Danielle LaRock?

  Really?

• 49:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  And he, yeah. And he would, and he was very open about it. He would tell us and he fell asleep in class a few times and we were just like, okay.

• 50:01Danielle LaRock?

  You just waited out.

• 50:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  A lot of times. He was a sub, but he was like, our school was weird. I don't know if your school did this, but my school, every time we had a sub, they just put a movie on.

• 50:12Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, yeah. Roll out that TV.

• 50:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  Every single time. Yeah. They'd roll up the TV. They'd throw on something and then the sub would just sit there. And every time he was a sub, he'd just be sleeping in the corner.

• 50:24Danielle LaRock?

  Because of a medical condition?

• 50:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes.

• 50:26Danielle LaRock?

  Right. Not because he was.

• 50:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  But it could have been the movie. I fell asleep during the movie almost all the time. So.

• 50:34Danielle LaRock?

  For that sole reason, I kind of for a while, thought that a side hustle as a sub would be perfect.

• 50:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Or so boring.

• 50:42Danielle LaRock?

  Or so boring. And then I was like, I don't even want to be around kids. Why would I willingly sign up for that?

• 50:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 50:50Danielle LaRock?

  It depends. Maybe high school.

• 50:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Early twenties.

• 50:51Danielle LaRock?

  I would do it.

• 50:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  When I was in my early twenties, I considered substitute teaching for high school. But then I was like, but I'm like their same age, you know?

• 51:00Danielle LaRock?

  I'm gonna get bullied.

• 51:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, they're gonna think I'm one of them.

• 51:03Danielle LaRock?

  I'm gonna get harassed and.

• 51:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  I still think that though. Like I went into a shop the other day and this girl was like, yeah, I'm 19. I was like, I thought we were the same age.

• 51:13Danielle LaRock?

  Okay. On our trip to Hawaii, when, who was it? She's like, I'm 22.

• 51:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Georgia.

• 51:19Danielle LaRock?

  Young people. Was it Georgia? She's like, I'm 22.

• 51:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, Georgia.

• 51:22Danielle LaRock?

  What? I would have never known. Not that I think she looked older.

• 51:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  To you.

• 51:26Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 51:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  Not really. I couldn't have. I'm not that much older. I mean, technically, I maybe. I didn't get my period till later in life, so probably.

• 51:35Danielle LaRock?

  I got it early. I could definitely be your mom.

• 51:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, anyway.

• 51:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well.

• 51:38Danielle LaRock?

  Hope you're doing well, Georgia. You have so much life ahead of you.

• 51:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  Continue, Georgia's mom.

• 51:44Danielle LaRock?

  Okay. Tom Thompson, I don't think he has, uh, micturition syncope. Do you agree?

• 51:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  I, if he did.

• 51:54Danielle LaRock?

  Let's just say he didn't.

• 51:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's a cool way to go, I guess.

• 52:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, the most shocking development came from a second or third-hand account from a woman named Daphne Crombie. In 1977, Crombie was one of the last people still alive to have known Tom Thompson during his final year at Canoe Lake. She and her husband had been staying at the Moat Lodge that summer, and in an interview with a historian, she claimed to know exactly what happened. According to her, she and Annie Frazier, so Shannon Frazier's wife, the owner of the lodge's wife, had become friends. Annie admitted to Crombie that she'd read the last letter Winnie had sent to Thompson, and in it, she told Tom she was coming to Canoe Lake the following week. She insisted that they needed to get married

• 52:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  and that he would need to settle his debt with Shannon Frazier to pay for their wedding. It's all going back, justice for Winnie. Here Winnie is again, being blamed for, like, being the catalyst of the situation. It's like, it's not her fault. Well, in Crombie's telling, Annie would go on to confess that on the night of July 7th, Tom did approach Shannon, asking him to repay his loan, which then led and erupted into this huge argument. Frazier punched Tom. Tom fell, hit his head on a fire grate and fell unconscious. And as a result, panicking and believing that Thompson was dead and that he had just killed him, even though it was by accident.

• 53:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  The Fraziers disposed of his body in the lake, and that is the cover-up theory. That's also far-fetched, because why is this canoe upside down? Yeah, and there's so many, yeah, okay, well. They're creating an entire scenario. This woman, by the way, it's just this one girl, or well, woman now. And like, those details at face value, she's in this official interview with a historian, having this like bombshell confession, essentially. And why would she know this? Because she, so she essentially was saying, "Back in that summer, I was good friends with the Fraziers." Especially. But why would they tell her that? Right, right, like, why would she? That's random person, no.

• 54:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like, hey, I gotta tell you something, we murdered someone by accident. No one's gonna say that to you. Yeah, you're sitting around a fire, and it's like, two truths and a lie. I gotta get something off my chest.

• 54:31Danielle LaRock?

  Um, okay. So at first, like at face value, it seems those details at least seem pretty damning. And as a surprise to no one, they were quickly publicized. It pinned the blame for Thompson's death on Shannon Frazier, who by this point had since died. So he can't say anything about it. And yet his wife or widow is like, hey, my husband killed somebody and I want to tell you all about it. That being said, many have raised concerns about her version of the story. First of all, Ranger Mark Robinson had reported seeing Thompson alive the following morning. Like he has been on record saying that since the very beginning. So.

• 55:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  So it couldn't have been the day before.

• 55:17Danielle LaRock?

  Right. They couldn't have killed him the night before, put his body in a canoe and sent it into the lake. So there's that. And if Thompson had come to make Frazier repay his debt, then why did Winnie tell the Thompson family in her letters that the debt had already been repaid? Cause she had said that.

• 55:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:35Danielle LaRock?

  So like, where is this coming from?

• 55:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  The math's not mathing.

• 55:38Danielle LaRock?

  But most importantly, if this was true, why would Annie Frazier confess this heinous crime? And better yet, why would Crombie not mention her confession for almost 60 years? So going back to what you just said, why in the world would Annie confess this to this woman, Daphne? And why did Daphne wait, you know, all this time? Crombie had been interviewed by other scholars about Thompson before and had never breathed a word about any of this supposed cover up. And some theorize that Crombie had shaped her story for attention for whatever reason that may be. It's like a very strange, please, like, I know you might be bored, but don't stir the pot.

• 56:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's just weird because none of this is, none of this feels credible. It really feels like a bunch of gossip.

• 56:25Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 56:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  It feels like this whole community is just like throwing fuel into this fire. It's like, I heard this here and there and so and so is sketchy and da, da, da. Like, it just feels like everyone is kind of starting drama, but no one has. Real evidence or proof or?

• 56:43Danielle LaRock?

  Right. And the other thing is like, I can understand, not saying I endorse it, but I can understand the gossip.

• 56:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, I love gossip. Give me the tea.

• 56:53Danielle LaRock?

  Turned, people add in embellishments or things here and there. If it was like immediately after, this is 60 years later, in this particular instance, but even the other theories.

• 57:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  But it's in the headlines again. So people are coming forward with their two cents.

• 57:08Danielle LaRock?

  But is that also kind of places that like, that would also put you in people's sights of like, why are you, like, if you knew this information, why are you just telling it? Like, it doesn't make you look good.

• 57:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 57:21Danielle LaRock?

  Cause you're complacent or whatever in this information and you just held it close to your chest for the, whatever. I don't believe a word of it. So again, I don't even think it's worth talking about anymore. Well, according to historian Gregory Clogge, the author of the book, The Many Deaths of Tom Thompson, Crombie was swept up in speculation and she was not the only one to share different versions of their testimony throughout their lifetimes, which clearly only adds to the confusion surrounding the events that led to Tom's death. Ranger Mark Robinson, which was, like we said, he did shift his, his thoughts and opinions

• 58:00Danielle LaRock?

  since when he originally wrote them down to later in life. He was one of the few people who was actually on site when it happened and who took detailed records of the events that surrounded Tom's death. And yet, in the years that followed, his memory of what happened seemed to shift. Robinson claimed for the first time in 1930, that Robinson's ankle was suspiciously wrapped in fishing wire when they recovered him. Like, okay. Detail you might want to mention right away.

• 58:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, that's important. This is why you need a coroner.

• 58:35Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, right. Yeah.

• 58:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Not a doctor on vacation. You just interrupted.

• 58:41Danielle LaRock?

  Well, and he did his due diligence. He called. I mean, the doctor also didn't note that too. Like for the record, that was never noted anywhere, literally anywhere until 1930. So what 20 ish years after the fact, he's like, oh yeah, by the way.

• 58:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  I do remember that.

• 58:59Danielle LaRock?

  There was some fishing wire around his ankles, which feels weird. And then not only that, in the 50s, so fast forward even more time, he added more detail to this particular piece of information stating that the wire was wrapped 16 or 17 times.

• 59:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Around his leg.

• 59:18Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, around his ankles, like tethering them together with fishing wire.

• 59:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, both of his ankles together, not one singular. Okay, that's so important.

• 59:26Danielle LaRock?

  I know.

• 59:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  That is how you drown is you can't swim.

• 59:30Danielle LaRock?

  Or how somebody ties you together and hit you over the head and.

• 59:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Throws you in the water. Yeah.

• 59:36Danielle LaRock?

  He claimed that he wrote this in his diary, but not only did Robinson fail to record the number of times the wire was wrapped around Thompson's ankle in his diary, he made no mention of the fishing wire literally at all. He's like, oh yeah, I wrote that down. It's like, no, you didn't.

• 59:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  They do say memory is the worst witness, like eyewitness accounts are the worst proof that you can find because it can change, it can be manipulated, especially over time, things can change.

• 1:00:04Danielle LaRock?

  Well, he's just recalling details incorrectly.

• 1:00:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  So long later. Yeah.

• 1:00:08Danielle LaRock?

  It's just such an easy thing to disprove though, because he's like, no, I swear I saw it. I wrote it down and you flip open the diary. You're like, oh, in this diary, it's not in here. So you're saying you saw it and you wrote it down. It's not here. So you know what I mean?

• 1:00:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  Where did you write it down?

• 1:00:25Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, author Clogus writes that Robinson's evolving testimony warrants careful consideration. It's certainly possible that there was wire on Thompson's ankle, but to believe that it proved someone purposefully sunk Tom in the lake was a stretch. More likely, the author argues that maybe there was wire wrapped around his ankles, but it was because the search team used fishing wire to pull Thompson's floating body to shore after it was discovered to anchor it to the shore. So it would not float away before his examination. So, okay, great explanation. Like that clears a lot of things up.

• 1:01:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Danielle LaRock?

  Robinson was at Canoe Lake when it happened, but in the following decades, his memory of the event seemed to morph, each new detail supporting his belief that Thompson was murdered, which we know as confirmation bias. From there, Robinson and Crombie's testimonies were advanced by authors who brought theories of their own, some embellishments, and some entirely new details, often which came several decades after his actual death. The result was an ever-growing whodunit mystery, which became more elaborate and arguably more far-fetched every year. With this in mind, it's worth taking a close look at the three leading theories for Thompson's death one last time: murder, suicide, and

• 1:01:45Danielle LaRock?

  cover-up. Are they even plausible? So let's do a little recap. First, there's the theory that Martin Bletcher murdered Thompson. In this story, that's evolved since the 1970s, Thompson and Bletcher attended a campfire, drank bootleg liquor, and got into a fight the night prior to Tom's death. Whether it was over Winnie or Canada's role in World War I, friends had to physically pull them apart. Sometime after that, Bletcher struck Thompson over the head in anger and killed him. This also explains why Bletcher and his sister failed to report spotting Thompson's empty canoe the day after his death. That said, if the drunken brawl at the heart of this story had actually happened, nobody mentioned it for 50 years. It first appeared in 1970 in William Little's book.

• 1:02:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh.

• 1:02:30Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay.

• 1:02:33Danielle LaRock?

  The coroner interviewed the residents of Canoe Lake the day after Thompson was buried, so why wouldn't anyone think to mention it then? Like, hey, yeah, they had a huge blowout fight. Maybe you should look into that guy. Like, that never happened. Documents from the time record Thompson and Bletcher having, and actually, a cordial relationship, while the story that they hated one another emerged later in gossip and rumors. Next, there's the theory that Thompson ended his own life. It's impossible to truly know the feelings that other people carry around with them each and every day, but what do we know about Tom in 1917? For one thing, he was making plans in advance. He discussed plans to travel the Rocky Mountains, a

• 1:03:15Danielle LaRock?

  Places friends had recently visited and booked work as a fishing guide through August. He told his father he could afford paint for the next year and the day before he died, he promised to send some of his new pieces back to Toronto. And by most accounts, he was in really high spirits. None of the letters he sent to family or friends conveyed a sense of urgency or depression. Canoe Lake residents reported he'd been in an excellent mood. And art historians who reviewed his paintings from that summer suggest that he was at the peak of his creative ability. And as for our girl Winnie pressuring Tom to marry, there is no primary evidence that has ever emerged that the two were engaged,

• 1:03:55Danielle LaRock?

  not in the letters she sent to Thompson's family or in the letters Winnie and Tom even sent to one another. Claims that Winnie was pregnant first appeared 50 years after Thompson's death and offered no conclusive proof.

• 1:04:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Come on, it's so far fetched. That's, I just can't get behind that at all. Even with their letters back and forth to each other, they don't speak of

• 1:04:17Danielle LaRock?

  Loving each other?

• 1:04:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  Or loving each other or being engaged. So it's all just made up.

• 1:04:22Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, all of it. And finally, their simple logistics as far as this, uh, the suicide theory. Thompson packed his canoe with at least a day's worth of provisions before he left that day. And when you consider, I mean, not to get dark, but when you consider the plethora of other options to end your own life, like a gun, a knife, rope, like any other method, why would he try drowning himself?

• 1:04:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Danielle LaRock?

  Like that, I mean-

• 1:04:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  It seems like a really awful way to purposefully go.

• 1:04:53Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 1:04:54Cassandra Yahnian?

  Um, and- Again, feels very farfetched.

• 1:04:57Danielle LaRock?

  Right. And the suicide theory is kind of like, it really leans into this cliche of the tortured artist that just like, isn't getting anywhere and you know, woe is me type of thing and-

• 1:05:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  But his success, like he's-

• 1:05:13Danielle LaRock?

  He's gaining success.

• 1:05:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Danielle LaRock?

  At this point in time. I mean, he's not just doing it as a hobby and no one has any interest in his-

• 1:05:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  He's living where he loves. He has a good community around him.

• 1:05:24Danielle LaRock?

  He has work, he's being creative.

• 1:05:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, it just doesn't feel like, and base, I haven't looked up his art yet, but it doesn't feel like his art is very dark. It feels like it's pretty light and, and happy. So it doesn't feel like a tortured artist-

• 1:05:41Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 1:05:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  Vibe here.

• 1:05:43Danielle LaRock?

  Well, in short, essentially, he left nothing behind that could be used to support the suicide theory that would suggest he was unusually depressed. And of course, again, there's no way of knowing, you know, he's not obligated to write his thoughts, feelings and emotions down on paper for us to find later and examine and try and, you know, pick through what he may have been thinking or feeling. But there's literally nothing for anyone.

• 1:06:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  That indicates that this should, could be a possibility.

• 1:06:14Danielle LaRock?

  Right. And last but not least, there's the cover up theory. This version of the story revolves around what happened to Thompson's body after he died. Shannon Fraser had been among the first to suggest that Thompson's body was never removed from Algonquin Park. He had taken the second undertaker to Tom's grave and later argued that the man had worked too quickly to exhume a body on his own. Added to that, reports of the railroad staff, again, surprised by the light casket, or lighter than expected casket, that all fueled speculation that it was empty, he wasn't in there at all. However, in the 1950s, we saw that four men could essentially dig three graves in that cemetery in just four hours. So clearly, it's not that far fetched that one person could do one grave in one night.

• 1:06:59Danielle LaRock?

  And reports that the casket was lighter than expected may not have taken into account embalming practices, removing the organs and blood before burial. Letters from the coroner who arrived later confirmed as much, saying, quote, "An undertaker from Kearney had arrived. The body was embalmed and transferred to the mainland on Tuesday morning and there buried in a sandy spot on the edge of a small hill." So he did have a hasty embalming process, which I wanted to clarify because I feel like it was just like, he was on shore, he was looked at and buried and then exhumed and just immediately transferred via train. And of course, there's also what that quote kind of alluded to at the end. There are also several accounts that attest to Thompson's body arriving in Owen Sound for the burial

• 1:07:44Danielle LaRock?

  at his family's plot. Like, people were there to receive it. His family had a funeral for him. Yeah.

• 1:07:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  And did they have a wake? Did they have a wake or an open casket?

• 1:07:54Danielle LaRock?

  No, he, he was decomposing for a week in the lake. They didn't have

• 1:07:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh, right, right.

• 1:07:59Danielle LaRock?

  Anything like that. But Frazier's role in this whole affair often traces back to his behavior immediately after Thompson's body was discovered. Frazier quickly arranged for a local burial and some accused him of ignoring the Thompson's family's wishes, which were sent by telegram to his lodge. And as a result, Thompson was in the ground before the coroner arrived. In his book, the historian Gregory Clegas argues that if Shannon Frazier was guilty of a cover up, it was likely a financial mistake, not involuntary manslaughter. For a community rattled by Thompson's death, his decomposing body in the summer heat was not a good look, unpleasant, to say the least. And he's the owner of this lodge where tons of people are vacationing and staying. And plus, I mean, Tom was his friend.

• 1:08:44Danielle LaRock?

  Like, he doesn't want to just keep him out there. So this historian is basically saying, like, Frazier probably just took it upon himself to finance a prompt burial, despite any money problems that he may have had, believing that he would be reimbursed by the Thompson family. After he had already paid the undertaker, a telegram from the Thompsons arrived instructing that their son's body be sent to Owen Sound. Fearing that he'd be held responsible for this first burial if it was called off, he may have obscured the telegram, hoping that the family would allow the body to just stay there. Like, he was hoping they found out that he was already interred and they would have just let it go and let him stay there. And in later letters to the Thompson family, Frazier awkwardly attempted to recoup the

• 1:09:26Danielle LaRock?

  costs he incurred for the initial burial and for hiring men to help with the search. Like, okay.

• 1:09:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  What?

• 1:09:34Danielle LaRock?

  Just a PSA. If this ever happens to you and you were ever in this position that Shannon Frazier was in, just let's call it even. Let's not ask the family, a grieving family who just tragically lost their son to pay

• 1:09:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  For search and rescue costs and for a, for a burial that they didn't want.

• 1:09:54Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 1:09:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  That you went ahead and greenlit yourself to do. Like, maybe there weren't malicious intent behind.

• 1:10:01Danielle LaRock?

  I don't think so.

• 1:10:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm not saying that, but it's, that wasn't your call. So that was your, it's like, my bad.

• 1:10:07Danielle LaRock?

  Just let it go. Like, just be, I'm so sorry. And don't ask for money.

• 1:10:19Danielle LaRock?

  The truth is, some hundred years later, Thompson's fate will always remain a mystery. All of the people who knew him and the people who lived at Canoe Lake when it happened have since passed away. Some key figures like Shannon Fraser never recorded their memory of the events in question. Fraser's only accounts are a few telegrams and letters he sent to the Thompsons in 1917. He also did send them flowers. I do want to mention that. He's not just like a money scrounging little scoundrel. What's left are likely poorly remembered details from firsthand witnesses, extravagant embellishments added by later writers, and a tale passed from decade to decade like a game of telephone, growing farther and farther from the events of 1917.

• 1:11:04Danielle LaRock?

  Without any new evidence, no theory can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, even the official story, which is an accidental drowning. Thompson was believed to be a great swimmer, so many have been resistant to the idea that he did drown. And we've all, like I said, heard stories of people at the peak of their ability and things happening to them. So that's hard for me. Like, that rationale is really hard for me to accept. The waters of Algonquin Park were choked with leftover timber from the logging industry. So it really is possible that he struck a downed log, flipped his canoe, and hit his head. Maybe he did slip and fall, hit his head on the canoe and drowned. Or maybe, like you said earlier, he had a medical event, a heart attack, a seizure, a stroke. Like, anything can cause that.

• 1:11:47Danielle LaRock?

  The bruise reported on his head and potential bleeding from his ear drew immense suspicion and cries a foul play. But in the eyes of modern forensic experts, it's more likely that Dr. Howland, the vacationing doctor who performed the initial examination, wasn't familiar with the effects of advanced decomposition. Dr. Michael Polanin, a chief forensic pathologist from Ontario in 2007, concluded they were evidence of being dead in a lake for a week, not of murder. Like, things happen to the body, you know? Especially in those conditions. And with all of our knowledge that we have now, it's, that doesn't seem... Farfetched at all. It actually seems quite normal. And even at the time, Knew Lake residents dismissed the idea of foul play.

• 1:12:31Danielle LaRock?

  When asked if she believed if Thompson was murdered, Winnie simply replied, no. But again, without any new evidence, Thompson's death will always remain a mystery. Tom Thompson's story offers plenty of eyebrow raising details for the skeptical among us. Just enough detail to craft compelling theories, but not enough information to prove anything one way or another. And rather accept the unknown, people have spent a century trying to explain his death. A story in and of itself that reveals a fascination with the macabre and an unwillingness to accept that all too often, simple accidents can and do claim the lives of people that we love and admire.

• 1:13:11Danielle LaRock?

  But when you focus on the speculation and theorizing, it's easy to lose sight of the man at the middle of the mystery. An artist who traveled to Algonquin Park each summer because the calm waters, good fishing and windswept trees inspired him. Who saw a reprieve from city life and found a place to explore his artistic talents. Who discovered a style of painting that he liked, that he practiced, and that he had no way of knowing would transform Canadian art for years to come. As is the case with many great artists, whether they are photographers, painters, musicians or performers. Tom's work really took off after his death, growing in value and in popularity.

• 1:13:50Danielle LaRock?

  In two thousand and nine, a sketch by Thompson named Early Spring Knew Lake sold at auction for nearly two million dollars.

• 1:13:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow.

• 1:13:59Danielle LaRock?

  Another found in an Edmonton basement in two thousand and eighteen by chance, sold for nearly half a million dollars at a Toronto auction.

• 1:14:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  Do you remember that show Trash or Treasure?

• 1:14:11Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  I used to watch it with my grandma and people would come on with the wildest things and that's just reminding me of it. It would just, it would be sitting in their attic for years. Someone gave it to their grandmother a while ago and they were just holding on to it. And people, you would go in and someone would be like, no, this is trash. Or they'd be like, this is worth a lot of money. And a lot of people, I remember one person, I don't know why this sticks out in my brain, but one person came in with a statue of an elephant. But they had just in their attic for a really long time and it ended up being worth like thousands of dollars.

• 1:14:48Danielle LaRock?

  Oh.

• 1:14:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, oh, this has been sitting in my attic for twenty years. Yeah.

• 1:14:53Danielle LaRock?

  It's very reminiscent of Antique Roadshow.

• 1:14:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, very similar.

• 1:14:57Danielle LaRock?

  Which I loved so much. For a while, my algorithm was the Antique Roadshow. I don't know how I lost it. I gotta get back there.

• 1:15:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Just, just look it up on Instagram and it'll pop right back up.

• 1:15:08Danielle LaRock?

  It's so heartwarming because usually the ones that get me are just like elderly people or older people that are either really struggling financially or, you know, just they're like, I don't know, like, I don't want to give this up because it's my late husband's brother's watch or whatever. But I need some money. And, and then they're like, well, luckily for you, this is worth five million dollars.

• 1:15:32Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like, take it.

• 1:15:33Danielle LaRock?

  And they cry and it's great. Well, some people often associate Tom Thompson with the Famous Group of Seven, Canada's first internationally recognized art movement from the 1920s, which profoundly influenced the country's art and how its citizens saw their landscape. The members, all landscape painters, included Franklin Carmichael, Lauren Harris, AY Jackson, Frank Johnson, Arthur Lismar, J E H McDonald, and F H Varley, who aimed to create uniquely Canadian art by depicting the rugged, vast, and spiritual northern wilderness, using bold colors and dynamic forms to define a national identity through nature.

• 1:16:14Danielle LaRock?

  Although Tom was their peer, worked with some of the members and influenced others in the group, he did die before the official group was like, really formed. So, a lot of sources say he was part of the group and others are like, say, the Group of Seven and Tom Thompson, like, kind of giving him a nod. But if he had lived, it very well could have been called the Group of Eight. Like, I feel like he would have been, not just me personally, but it's, yeah, pretty well accepted that he would have been associated with them in that way. His paintings can be found in many collections. Across Canada, the largest collection of his work is at the National Gallery of Canada

• 1:16:56Danielle LaRock?

  in Ottawa, to which Dr. James McCollum, Thompson's patron, that original guy that saw talent in him, sold many paintings in 1918 and then donated his collection in 1943. The Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery in Owen Sound, Thompson's hometown, was established in 1967 and contained a large collection of his work and his personal effects. But even if you aren't directly looking at his work hanging on a gallery wall, his influence can be seen in the work of later Canadian artists, and he is remembered as a haunting presence that embodies the Canadian artistic identity. In 1917, a memorial cairn on Canoe Lake was erected in his memory. A gold plate memorial marker reads,

• 1:17:41Danielle LaRock?

  "To the memory of Tom Thompson, artist, woodsman, and guide who was drowned in Canoe Lake on July 8, 1917. He lived humbly but passionately with the wild it made him, brother to all untamed things of nature. It drew him apart and revealed itself wonderfully to him. It sent him out from the woods only to show these revelations through his art, and it took him to itself at last. His fellow artists and other friends and admirers join gladly in this tribute to his character and genius. His body is buried at Owen Sound, Ontario, near where he was born, August 1877." His grave, located in Leith United Church Cemetery, reads,

• 1:18:25Danielle LaRock?

  "Landscape painter drowned in Canoe Lake, July 8, 1917, aged 39 years, 11 months, and 3 days. He is buried alongside one of his brothers who died when he was only nine months old, and his grandfather. The gravesite has become a popular spot for visitors, with many fans of his work leaving pennies or art supplies behind on the headstone as a tribute. In 2004, a historical marker honoring him was moved from its previous location near the center of town to the graveyard in which he is now buried. Through Thompson's paintings, we have a chance to see him and his life at Algonquin Park with Without the noise of the mystery surrounding his death.

• 1:19:05Danielle LaRock?

  Through his art, you can picture a man seated in a canoe, holding a stiff, bristled brush and a messy palette of bright paint, trying to capture a sunset. He might have gone over it a few times, thinking to himself, he wasn't doing the scene justice, but he did, and it was beautiful. And that is the story of Tom Thompson and what I think is his pretty obvious death. But I would love to know what you think after all of that information.

• 1:19:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  You know, I get why there's a lot of skepticism around his death and questions because of the way that it was handled when he died. And I think that absolutely the way that his death was handled was inappropriate. From leaving him out on the beach overnight in the hot sun to not having a coroner examine his body and the burial without his family's permission. I think all of that is extremely traumatizing for the family. And I think that that was handled completely wrong. And I think it is fair to open up a lot of questions of why and how he died. Because it is, it is weird, I think, just with no context, because you don't have a coroner.

• 1:20:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  But I think sometimes the most obvious answer is the answer. And my feeling in this is that he probably did fall and hit his head. And maybe that triggered a seizure. It's, I think it had to have been kind of a serious fall. Um, if he's bleeding from his ears, but again, that might be something, I don't know anything about decomposition in a lake for a week. So maybe that is something attributed to that. But I think it's very possible that he fell, hit his head and drowned. It was knocked unconscious and drowned or had, it could have been a combination of a medical event too. I mean, you could hit your head hard enough and it trigger a seizure and drown. You know, there's just a lot of things, it's hard.

• 1:21:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think something must have happened for his canoe to flip. Because if it was just a solitary medical event, if he had a heart attack or he had a stroke or seizure. Whatever, he would be found in his boat, not flipped. So something had to have happened prior to that for his, him to capsize. And I think it's possible that there could be foul play here. I think it's possible someone could have tipped him out of this boat and hit him or something, but I think it's, it feels farfetched. It feels unlikely. And unfortunately, it also feels like we'll never really have answers because no one ever did that first initial examination of

• 1:21:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  his body, or an appropriate person never did that full examination. And it being from the 1917, I mean, medical stuff wasn't as good back then. And even if his family, because throughout it, I would say his family could prove to the world that they have his remains and exhume his body, but that's traumatizing for the family and they should not need to do that. And even if they did, if he drowned, none of that is going to show on his skeletal remains. So I, I don't know.

• 1:22:14Danielle LaRock?

  At this point, it's over, you know?

• 1:22:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's over. It happened. I think it's fair for people to question because of the way it was horribly handled, but it feels like it kind of turned into this farfetched rumor that spread like wildfire. And I know local places, especially locals, there's always local lore and there's always people who know something that the authorities don't know. And there's rumors flying, but it doesn't even really feel like there were rumors flying around this malicious intent that could be between feuding neighbors or anything like that. All of that kind of seemed like it came out later down the line.

• 1:22:51Danielle LaRock?

  It did.

• 1:22:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  It was stirred up. Yeah, it just, it feels like the most obvious answer is the answer.

• 1:22:58Danielle LaRock?

  I agree. And I think there is something to really think of in all of this and that, that we didn't, you know, we spent some time addressing, but the family, you know, the family accepts, this is what happened to their family member, their brother, their son, and that was enough for them. And, you know, to just like keep dredging up all of this stuff and

• 1:23:26Danielle LaRock?

  I mean, he, his parents were likely passed away by the time a lot, like the meat of all of this really started to resurface and get tossed around and stuff, but he had siblings, you know, and other surviving family members that I'm sure are very sick and tired of hearing like what some guy who thought he wanted to go dig around in a grave thought and then perpetuate, you know, like.

• 1:23:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  And it sounds like that guy had no relation to the story at all. He just knew of it, wanted to find some answers himself and then kind of.

• 1:23:59Danielle LaRock?

  And went off with a shovel and.

• 1:24:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:02Danielle LaRock?

  It's like, well, here we go.

• 1:24:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  Super inappropriate also. You can just dig on the outside of a graveyard.

• 1:24:07Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, like, don't do that. Um, yeah. So I don't know. I, I think we've, we're just like kind of beating a dead horse at this point as far as what we think happened and, you know, what was, what went wrong during this and all that. So I think we're on the same page of he likely drowned after some sort of accident, which was the original story and the original explanation. And yes, you know, like it makes you think, but at the same time, I think we're all going to, we should all just like kind of arrive at this conclusion of let's just try and let his memory be what it is instead of just, yeah, I don't know. So I just think that it's really interesting that it is such

• 1:24:51Danielle LaRock?

  an enduring mystery because I think once you have all the information laid out like this, it's really not that.

• 1:24:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mysterious.

• 1:24:59Danielle LaRock?

  Mystery to me.

• 1:25:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  Right.

• 1:25:02Danielle LaRock?

  Or am I wrong? I don't know.

• 1:25:03Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think that there are some big questions of why he was handled the way he was. And I get why people jumped to all these conclusions and we don't know, right? We weren't there and, yeah, and things change over generations and, and how you mentioned telephone and things are warped and, you know, we don't truly know, but from what we have, it feels like a lot of, a lot of gossip.

• 1:25:27Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  And don't get me wrong. I love tea. I love the drama, but when it's affecting someone else's family and it's bringing drama in this kind of way is not, it's not great.

• 1:25:39Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Well, long story short, go look up some of Tom Thompson's paintings. If you are into art, I think you'll really enjoy them. Justice for Winnie.

• 1:25:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yes.

• 1:25:52Danielle LaRock?

  She was done dirty. And yeah, that's it, I guess. I don't know what else happened. We had, just for full disclosure to everyone, like 10 minutes before the, 10 minutes ago in your time, my camera decided to die. And so we took a brief intermission. So my head is a little scrambled and I eat a lot of snacks. Looks really fast. So fast. So I'm like, kind of out of breath. I'm like, what am I talking about? Oh, yeah. Tom Thompson. That's so funny. My biggest, like, obsession recently is, it's gonna maybe sound gross, but it's actually really good.

• 1:26:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Okay.

• 1:26:29Danielle LaRock?

  Chocolate hummus.

• 1:26:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  I've seen it before. I don't know if I've ever had it.

• 1:26:34Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, specifically the Joseph's brand of, the Joseph's brand of dark chocolate hummus. Uh, you can eat it with strawberries and stuff and whatever if you want, but I legit just take a spoon and eat it right out of the tub. It's so.

• 1:26:47Cassandra Yahnian?

  No, it's not good.

• 1:26:48Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like your new peanut butter.

• 1:26:50Danielle LaRock?

  Try it out. Yeah. Try it out. It's not good. I mean, it's like full of sugar and stuff. It's not good for you.

• 1:26:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  But it's hummus.

• 1:26:57Danielle LaRock?

  It's chickpeas. But it's vegetables.

• 1:27:00Cassandra Yahnian?

  Our chickpeas is health.

• 1:27:03Danielle LaRock?

  This is a health podcast. Um, right. Okay. Yeah. It's also late because we had a miscommunication and I don't know what's happening. So we gotta go.

• 1:27:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, we hope you enjoyed.

• 1:27:15Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, hope you enjoyed. Um, and we will see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

• 1:27:21Cassandra Yahnian?

  But watch your back.

• 1:27:22Danielle LaRock?

  Bye, everyone.

• 1:27:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Bye.

• 1:27:24Danielle LaRock?

  Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live. Discord and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark.

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