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A second-floor walkway crosses Queen Street to connect the south end of the Eaton Centre with The Bay department store, where, on the ninth floor, the Thomson Gallery (Mon-Sat 11am-5pm; $2.50) offers an outstanding introduction to many of Canada's finest artists, especially the Group of Seven . Highlights include an impressive selection of paintings by Lawren Harris, notably his surreal Lake Superior , and a small selection, by J.E.H. MacDonald, whose Rowan Berries of 1922 is simply stunning. Tom Thomson, the main inspiration of the Seven, is represented by the vivid Maple Springs and his heated Autumn's Garland, blotchy contrasts with A.Y. Jackson's smooth-flowing Road to Chicoutimi and the wriggling spirals of his Yellowknife Country , in which the trees swirl above a heaving, purplish earth. Franklin Carmichael, the youngest original member of the Group, also developed a flowing, harmonious technique, a beautiful example being his Cranberry Lake of 1931. Finally, a contemporary of the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, was famous for her paintings of west-coast Indian villages and the totemic figures she developed as a symbol of native culture. Thunderbird and Thunderbird, Campbell River BC are good examples of her later style, a marked progression from the fastidiousness of the early Gitwangak, Queen Charlotte Islands . The gallery's assortment of early and mid-nineteenth-century Canadian and Canada-based artists is less distinguished, but there are some fine canvases, such as the curiously unflattering Portrait of Joseph Brant by William Berczy and the winter scenes typical of the work of Cornelius Krieghoff . Interesting in a different way is the series by the artist-explorer Paul Kane , whose paintings show a conflict of subject and style that highlights the stylistic achievements of the Group of Seven: Kane's Landscape in the Foothills with Buffalo Resting , for example, looks more like a placid German valley than the prairies. Born in Ireland in 1810, Kane first emigrated to Toronto in the early 1820s, but returned to Europe at the age of 30, where, ironically enough, he was so impressed by an exhibition of paintings on the American Indian that he promptly decided to move back to Canada. In 1846, he finally wangled himself a place on a westward-bound fur-trading expedition and started an epic journey - travelling from Thunder Bay to Edmonton by canoe, crossing the Rockies by horse, and finally returning to Toronto two years after setting out. During his travels, Kane made some seven hundred sketches, which he then proceeded to paint onto canvas, paper and cardboard, and in 1859 published Wanderings of an Artist among the Indian Tribes of North America , the story of his journey. It includes this account of Christmas dinner at Fort Edmonton: "At the head, before Mr Harriett, was a large dish of boiled buffalo hump; at the foot smoked a boiled buffalo calf ? one of the most esteemed dishes among the epicures of the interior. My pleasing duty was to help a dish of mouffle, or dried moose nose [while] the worthy priest helped the buffalo tongue and Mr Randall cut up the beaver's tails. The centre of the table was graced with piles of potatoes, turnips and bread conveniently placed, so that each could help himself without interrupting the labours of his companions. Such was our jolly Christmas dinner at Edmonton." Quite.
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