If Tom Thomson had a smart phone 100 years ago, what would he be tweeting about? That’s the question one Leith, Ontario man is answering with his blog and Twitter account called Tom Thomson’s Last Spring.
Tim Bouma says you can follow along with the painter’s final months, before meeting his mysterious and untimely death in Algonquin Park on July 8th 1917.
Bouma says when you tie that together with Thomson’s untimely death, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding it, it’s a story that’s part of Canadian folklore.
He says the idea for a real-time account of Thomson’s final spring came from other historical Twitter accounts.
This is Bouma’s sixth year re-creating Thomson’s final months, and says it has grown over time. He says a lot of research went into the project, including taking historical material and flipping it like it was Thomson expressing it. Bouma grew up in the same town as Thomson, which is just outside of Owen Sound.
Bouma says he has gotten great feedback on Twitter, with around 60,000 views per day. He says some people are even playing along, and replying to the story as if he were alive 100 years ago. For example, Bouma recently tweeted as Thomson about tapping maple syrup, and he got replies describing how trees are tapped in the 21st century.
Follow along with Thomson’s final months, on the TT Last Spring blog or on Twitter @TTLastSpring.