On Canadian art and landscapes

"The new type of artist... puts on the outfit of the bushwhacker and prospector; closes with his environment; paddles, portages and makes camp; sleeps in the out-of-doors under the stars; climbs mountains with his sketchbook on his back."  - F.B. Houser, 1926.

In the Canadian section of the Art Gallery of Ontario, there are several rooms dedicated to the Group of Seven, a vaguely cult-sounding name to describe seven painters of the 1920's that championed the Canadian landscape.  Before they banded together and began trading tips and techniques, the Canadian landscape was thought to be unworthy of rendering on canvas.   The Group of Seven painted anyway, and with names like "Mountain Solitude," "Where the Eagles Soar," and "Above Lake Superior," their paintings "sought to capture the essential spirit of the north."

The gallery invites the viewer to question the mythology that has grown around these paintings and asks "are these landscapes a true representation of Canada?"  Based on limited experience and a healthy dose of Molson Beer commercials, I would say yes.

It was within this landscape that I had hoped to run this week.  I could very clearly see myself in those paintings, lost somewhere amongst the old growth Douglas Firs, bounding down a long forgotten path perhaps used by fur traders generations ago.   The path would intermittently afford views of the surrounding area, of mountains flecked with grey and white that puncture the forest canopy, escaping to the sky, before plunging me back into a relative darkness where strange woodland creatures roam, suddenly a woodland creature on my own, all in what is my version of my own personal escape. The cold is startling at first and fights to enter my body, but my pounding limbs and heaving chest put up resistance.  The bouncy needles of the white pine littering the forest floor offer little resistance and leave no footprints, and I simply keep running - light, unfettered, fast - relishing the wind created by speed, exercising a different medium than the Group of Seven, but capturing no less of the essence of the north, because the best way to capture a landscape is to run through it.

Instead I've been running on a treadmill all week.