Camp at Bear River, N.W.T., circa 1950

Purchased directly from the Artist, circa 1950 Private Collection, Montreal Private Collection

The Group of Seven depicted Canada’s vast and predominantly uninhabited landscape. However, the extensive and varied terrain also offered prime locations for mining and the production of pulp and paper, which led to rapid industrialization throughout the twentieth century. A.Y. Jackson took an interest in the subject of mines, and he sketched many of them in Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories–Eldorado Mine (radium) on Great Bear Lake, N.W.T.; Temagami Mine (copper and silver) and Sudbury Mine (nickel, copper and other metals) in Ontario; Thetford Mines (asbestos) in Quebec; Smallwood Mine (silver) in Labrador, as well as several gold mines surrounding Thunder Bay. As a result of the elite social circle that surrounded the Group of Seven artists in Toronto, Jackson encountered many of the mine owners, engineers and other figures involved in the mining productions, who sometimes commissioned or purchased his work. Jackson’s ‘minescapes’ are a hybrid space where rural life intersects with urban demand. In Jackson’s “Camp at Bear River”, the tents and machinery acknowledge the human imprint left on the land. These paintings complicate the romanticized view of Canada’s wilderness and the Group of Seven’s portrayal of “terra nullius”, as they represent a new phase of industrialism and capitalism in twentieth century Canada. According to Naomi Jackson Groves her uncle A.Y. Jackson painted some of his finest works during his trips to the Canadian north. Jackson would often travel with geologists and other mining personnel to reach remote areas of the Canadian north, capturing the rugged terrain in his work. The primeval nature of the landscape appealed to the artist, with its vigorous mid-summer life clinging tenaciously to the margins of existence.