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.