Tom Thomson loved the rough country of northern Ontario. His exploratory artistic style and his appreciation of the wilderness helped shape the style of the Group of Seven, though his untimely death prevented him from exhibiting with the Group. Thomson created hundreds of small, miraculous oil paintings while supporting himself as a guide and forest ranger in Algonquin Park. Many of Thomson's oil sketches were executed in only a few hours, but they remain masterpieces of modern, distinctly Canadian, art.