Many writers have attempted to untangle the events of July 8, 1917, when Thomson vanished, his overturned canoe found on Canoe Lake. His body was discovered on July 16 near the canoe. Scientifically this is possible because in the 40-foot deep, very cold water, his body would have sunk first and then floated upward as the body’s natural production of methane and hydrogen gasses made it float upward in due time.

Lehto is the latest in a long line-up of journalists, arts writers, historians and novelists who have tangled with this tale. His is most likely one of the most thoroughly researched books of them all; it fits well into the historic fiction genre in which real events are combined with fictional ones, real individuals with fictional characters.

This American lawyer, who has also a degree in journalism, brings his two skills to full use in Algonquin Elegy. His research about Thomson and the events surrounding his death is thorough, and it points out many important aspects that other writers have either intentionally or unwittingly omitted from their stories. But, what is best of all about his take on the Thomson tale, is his obvious love for Algonquin Park, a 2,910 square-mile wilderness that is almost 400 square miles larger than the EU country of Luxembourg. While Thomson made the park famous through his vivid color depictions of this huge wilderness park with its many lakes and rivers, waterfalls and white-water runs, Lehto manages to capture the beauty of the place through his words. One can sense the love he has for the place, for the sport of canoeing, even for the strenuous portages that are needed to avoid dangerous rapids, or to get from one lake or river to the next.

For those of us, who know the park in its seasons, but especially in fall, Lehto captures the place in words as few others have done. His story, of course, takes place summer, but he also captures it in late spring as he switches from the fictional to the real, from the re-constructed to actual events.

It is an intriguing book to read. It reveals Lehto’s fascination with the Thomson story and the myths that have built around it over the years. His central protagonist (Thomson aside) is Jon Kristian, like the author, a Michigan lawyer. He is not only in the search of Thomson’s story, but also on a kind of search for redemption wrought out of a recent divorce. It makes great reading most of the time, although occasionally the strands of the fictional tale become a but disconnected because they are separated by too many chapters concerned with the real events.

The most disconcerting aspect of the book, however, is the lack of proof reading of this self-published tale through the auspices of iUniverse Inc. And, while the author is a stickler for facts - as one would expect with his background - he failed to do his personal research well that concerns the fictional/non-fictional aspects of this tale*. Among other things, he has Thomson buried by Rev. Cornett of Knox United Church. Unfortunately, the United Church of Canada, Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, was not founded until 1925. The Thomsons were staunch Presbyterians, and at the time the church was known as Knox Presbyterian and the Rev. Cornett was of that faith. Another very obvious error is Lehto’s constant reference to Route 60 - it hits you straight in the face as the first two words of the opening chapter. That, sorry to say, is an American take on a Canadian highway. It happens to be Highway 60 (The Queen’s Highway in its full term) that runs through the southern section of Algonquin Park. It is also Highway 11, not Route 11. Its full name happens to be Yonge Street, stretching from Toronto’s Lake Ontario shore, thereby forming that city's main business street that divides it into east and west, to almost 2,000 miles in a northwesterly direction to lake Superior. He also has a problem with the term rural route. In Ontario a rural route is a postal area of a large number of rural roads, either Concession Roads, Side Roads or Lines followed by a number. All these road assignments are probably very confusing to our American cousins, but they are some of the aspects that make us different from each other.

All this notwithstanding, Lehto has a definite knack for spinning a yarn, and I hope he will continue to write more stories. But I would strongly suggest that he finds a proof reader so that unwanted words are deleted and missing ones are added. Still, for a good take on the Thomson mystery, Lehto’s is an excellent read and full of information, supported by reproductions of original documents.

[Algonquin Elegy: Tom Thomson's Last Spring by Neil J. Lehto
iUniverse, paperback, 225 pages, U$19.95 ISBN 0-595-36132-3]

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