MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Summer 2018

SUMMER 2018 ML BLUE 27 7 Sea Kayaking to the Mary Ward wreck There aren’t too many places where you can see a 19 th -century shipwreck this close to a major highway. But this easy kayak or SUP trip takes you over the clearly visible wreck of the propeller steamer Mary Ward , entombed on the treacherous Escarpment shoals of Georgian Bay off Craigleith. You’ll forget that Highway 26 is not even two kilometres away. After losing sight of the Nottawasaga lighthouse in a gale in November 1872, the ship got hung up on the shoals; eight passengers drowned when they left the ship in a small boat that overturned in the waves. You can try to find the wreck yourself (paddle straight out from the Craigleith Shores condominiums) or leave nothing to chance and take a guided tour with the pros at Free Spirit, leaving in kayaks from Northwinds Beach. Allow 4-5 hours for the trip and that includes snorkelling. Tip: a calm, sunny day is essential. DIY: freespirit-tours.com Dave Loopstra above the Mary Ward . NED MORGAN 6 Tom Thomson Pilgrim Route The artist who influenced the Group of Seven and subsequent generations of Canadian landscape painters grew up in the village of Leith, just east of Owen Sound. You can visit his grave in Leith United Church Cemetery. (Some believe that Thomson’s body is buried instead near Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park, where he drowned under mysterious circumstances in 1917. All attempts to exhume his remains—to make a positive ID or to examine them for signs of foul play—have long been resisted by Thomson’s family.) Continue your pilgrimage to the remarkable Tom Thomson Art Gallery in downtown Owen Sound. Exhibitions of Thomson’s oil paintings and sketches, graphic design work and other memorabilia offer a window into one of Canada’s most imitated artists. Dedicated pilgrims on bicycles can ride the Tom Thomson Trail, a mixed road and off-road route from Meaford to Owen Sound, via Leith. Next stop: Algonquin Provincial Park, where the Visitor Centre provides info on the many Thomson- related sites in the park. DIY: Tom Thomson Trail: tomthomsontrail.com. Tom Thomson Art Gallery: tomthomson.org. Best book: T om Thomson: The Silence and the Storm , by David Silcox and Harold Town, originally published in 1977 and republished in an expanded edition last year. Bateaux ,Tom Thomson, 1916. COURTESY AGO MICROTRIPS