#2303 "Windswept"

The trees of the Parry Sound Archipelago are heavily flagged by the westerly winds off Georgian Bay. Even the swirls in the granite look like they were shaped by the wind. All of nature is wind-swept by the strong and persistent winds off the broad expanse of open water of Georgian Bay. It is a terrific and inspiring place to paint.

Wind-swept is an adjective meaning open or exposed to the wind. Related words include cold, bitter, wet, blustery, stormy, brisk, boisterous, gusty, desolate, austere, dreary, chilly, grim, damp, freezing, chill, biting, bleak, breezy, piercing, exposed, unprotected, bleak, bare, desolate and probably many more. For me the adjective is synonymous with "natural beauty".

Here is the back story behind the Parry Sound Archipelago Series of paintings.

A friend invited me to his cottage so that he could reveal the real Parry Sound and the 30,000 Islands of the Georgian Bay Archipelago. Archipelago is a fancy geographical term for a chain or group of islands scattered across a body of water. Canine Cove on Parry Island was home base for a few days and I painted and explored with my friend.

Tom Thomson and members of the Group of Seven painted in the area for a while around 1914. Parry Sound slumped a bit in economic activity shortly after World War I when J.R. Booth built the rival town of Depot Harbour on nearby Parry Island. An accidental fire destroyed the entire town of Depot Harbour on August 14, 1945.

The body of water that gives the town its name was surveyed and named by Captain Henry Bayfield in the 19th century. Captain Bayfield named the area in honour of the Arctic explorer Sir William Edward Parry. The modern townsite was established In 1857 near the Ojibwa village of Wasauksing which means "shining shore" which was located at the mouth of the Seguin River.

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