The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Experience fall colors by visiting these areas
Fall color against the backdrop of the rugged Canadian Shield was everything to the Group of Seven.
The rocky Canadian Shield defines the landscapes, forming rugged mountains, bluffs and canyons as it was shaped over three billion years of plate tectonics, erosion and glaciation. The oldest rock on earth, it’s poked through to the surface along the north shore of Lake Superior in a region called Algoma. Trees of the mixed forest include the spires of conifers, such as spruce, pine, fir, hemlock and cedar framed by patches of white birch trees and familiar hardwoods of maple, ash and poplar.
The iconic Canadian Group of Seven artists are little known in America, yet from the 1920s on they defined the Canadian North for the rest of the world with their paintings of fall color, waterfalls and Lake Superior vistas.
Fall and spring were their favorite seasons to go out into the wilds by canoe, making their headquarters in a boxcar they had towed north to a siding from Sault Ste. Marie for their sketching trips. From there, they would take a canoe into Lake Superior or drive a two-man pump car out along the tracks to reach waterfalls and other Algoma vistas they captured on 8-by-11½-foot canvases.
The artists also ventured into the Algonquin wilderness, north of their Toronto base.
All seven of the artists didn’t go north at the same time, but groups of three and four usually were accompanied by Lawren Harris, the artist with the greatest means, thanks to his wealthy family. He was the artist who financed the cozy caboose in which they made camp in the wild.
Today’s visitors can follow in their footsteps on a daylong rail trip 118 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie into the wilderness. The Agawa Canyon Tour Train passes over high trestles, along pristine northern lakes and awesome granite rock formations that give birth to roaring waterfalls. Artists and photographers often are among those traveling into the same wilderness where the Group of Seven found their inspiration.
It can be arranged to have a local artist accompany the train tour to show passengers how to paint their own masterpieces during the trip back to Sault Ste Marie.
The all-day tour includes a hot breakfast and lunch, prepared and served in a dining car. Flat-screen monitors in each car have an excellent commentary triggered by GPS technology to explain what’s ahead so those taking photos can be prepared. Trackside mile markers are keyed to a chapter in the Sault Ste. Marie Visitors Guide, which is available to all.
Fall color trips often are sold out well in advance but the train tour is an excellent
way to spend a day in the Sault Ste. Marie area. Only an eight-hour drive from Cleveland, the area is at the edge of the wilderness — a million miles away in terms of scenery and mindset.
So shutterbugs can capture dramatic photos, the train slows as it crosses long trestles and hugs the canyon wall while descending 500 feet into the Agawa Canyon, where it stops so passengers can get off for walks along the Agawa River and to follow trails leading to dramatic waterfalls.
Many of the spots where the famous artists worked are marked by an easel holding a replica of the painting sketched there.
Deal with summer’s mosquitos in Algoma and it’s easy to understand why the Group of Seven and the many artists following them wanted to paint quickly and in spring and fall. The men typically would capture the scenes in sketches and return to their boxcar to flesh out their paintings. Later they would take what they’d done back to their studio in Toronto to prepare works for exhibition.
The men, all nature lovers, met while working for a graphic-design firm in Toronto. They wanted to break with European art traditions by using bright, bold colors to interpret the uniquely beautiful Canadian landscapes. They first organized in 1919 and had their first Group of Seven exhibit the following year in what today is the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
Today, the Group of Seven is studied by school children throughout Canada as the originators of a belief that Canada itself must inspire Canadian art.
The day following our rail trip, our group of writers took a driving trip north along the Lake Superior Coastal Drive, following the northwest coast of the largest of the Great Lakes. Lake
Superior had been glimpsed several times on our rail trip but the tracks are, for the most part, several miles inland. This also is Highway 17 — the Trans Canada Highway — and it’s one of the most scenic drives in the world. Black clouds gave way to blue skies and sunshine several times during our drive, changing Lake Superior from placid and calm to almost violent.
The Lake Superior Interpretive Center, in a provincial park of the same name, gives an excellent look at the history and geography of Lake Superior and the hardships experienced by the long-ago voyageurs who traveled by canoe from here to Montreal to bring beaver and other furs back from the North Country. The huge park has lakeside camping that’s raved about for its scenery.
As we returned to Sault Ste. Marie for flights home, we stopped for lunch at Batchawana Bay, where a lakeside sign marked the spot a few miles out where the SS Edmund Fitzgerald met its tragic end.
Lunch at the lakeside
Voyageurs Lodge and Cookhouse introduced us to local dishes such as bannock, an unleavened bread much like johnnycake; poutine, french Fries topped with cheese and gravy; French-Canadian tourtiere; and other foods typical of the region. Many of them have their roots in the First Nation people who live on reservations in the surrounding forests.