A. Y. Jackson, Letter to the Children, Feb. 1914
![[ Deer grazing on chip yard, with Blecher house in background ]](../../images/site/355612_2.jpg "[ Deer grazing on chip yard, with Blecher house in background ]")
Deer grazing on chip yard, with Blecher house in background, Unknown, Algonquin Park Archives, APMA 72, This view of the Canoe Lake chip yard is very similar to Tom Thomson's photographs in the Library and Archives Canada, entitled "A northern mill-yard, I" and "A northern mill-yard, II"
Mowat. P.O. Algonquin Park. Ont.
Mes cheres enfants,
It is just dreadful the way the time flies whole months and years. I should have written ages ago but have been waiting for something to get excited about. Artist devoured by wolves, not yet. They howled at me one morning, and that is the worst so far.
[…]
You will notice my present address. far from the dust and din of commercialism. Mowat is a quiet unpretentious place. it doesn’t bust itself to double its population every two years. nor go crazy over selling building lots. No fortunes are made or lost and yet everyone is happy. The population is eight including me. perhaps if I stayed on I could get a job as health officer.. or chief of the fire brigade. Our only means of locomotion are snow shoes. There is only one road to the station a mile away and it stops there. However the snow shoeing is good there are lots of lakes and all frozen. so you can walk for miles on the level. as soon as you get off the lakes you are in the bush which is very rough a very tangle of birch and spruce but very interesting wild animals abound. Tracks everywhere deer, foxes, rabbits and wolves mostly. Hunting is forbidden so they all congregate here. I expect to be here until the middle of April, getting some winter sketches. It looks very much as if I will go west this summer. for the Canadian Northern.
[...]
I have quite a fine studio in Toronto which I share with another artist, Thomson, and we are getting it fixed up nicely. I am going to stick it out in Toronto for a year. There seems to be some chance of making a living there and people are much more interested in Canadian work than in Montreal.
[...]
The first crow hasn’t come around yet but March is nearly here and mild weather when I struck here two years ago it was 45 below zero, not going to let a little bug like [Manotick?] beat us.
With lots of love to all
Ever sincerely
Alex