The quartzite ridges of Killarney in fall
are the inspiration for the upper left portion of the 50 Years of Our Flag
Painting. This is the fall portion of the seasons portrayed in the project but
more importantly this area owes its very existence to the conservation efforts
of artists. In 1931 A. Y. Jackson
discovered that the area around Trout Lake was on the verge of being clear-cut.
He and fellow artists successfully petitioned the Provincial government to
rethink their short horizon plans. Trout Lake is now O.S.A. Lake named after
the Ontario Society of Artists. A nearby lake was named after A.Y. and I have
painted there a couple of times. Other members of the Group of Seven worked in
Killarney including Franklin Carmichael, Arthur Lismer and A. J. Casson. The
Group never returned to Algonquin after Tom Thomson died... I devote an entire chapter to Killarney in my
book “The Passion of Phil the Forecaster”.
The weather in this painting is another
meteorological lesson. The short answer is that after a beautiful autumn day of
painting, a strong rain storm was approaching from the southwest. The long
answer follows if you dare.
Light southerly winds were about to
intensify and veer to the southwest overnight as the deep low pressure area
passed to the north of Killarney. The band of cloud in the upper left is a
deformation zone heralding the low. Deformation zones (the double headed green
lines) are my favourite prediction tool. The shape and orientation of this line
of clouds tell a meteorologist everything needed to better understand the
track of the low and the state of the atmosphere. The warm front would pass north of Killarney
on the following day bringing rain and overcast skies. A cold front with strong
northwest winds and possibly even flurries would follow a day or so after. The
sky is like a book but you need to learn the vocabulary. I will leave that for
another day.
A.Y. Jackson and A.J. Casson from the Group
of Seven both submitted designs for the Canadian flag… more on this later.
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| A.Y. Jackson's Lake |
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| Deformation Zone Conceptual Model |
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