When Winnie Knew: a uniquely Huntsville story

Update, April 5, 2017: This story has been edited to include the director, the actor playing Winnie and information on ticket sales.

Next year marks the 100^th anniversary of the death of Tom Thomson – recorded as July 8, 1917, the date his overturned canoe was found in Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake. It wasn’t until July 16, 1917 that his body was found floating in the lake, and that date would have been when Winnie Trainor – the woman who loved him and who he likely loved in return – would have known he was dead.

One hundred years later, on July 16, 2017, a special production at the Algonquin Theatre will honour the tragic story of Winnie Trainor.

A collaboration between local actor Grant Nickalls, author and former Huntsville resident Roy MacGregor and local musician Sean Cotton, “When Winnie Knew” will be a series of vignettes that tell the story from Trainor’s perspective.

The idea was the brain-child of Teri Souter, the Town of Huntsville’s Manager of Art, Culture and Heritage.

“It’s particularly exciting because we are creating historic content that is specific to Huntsville – the tragic story of Winnifred Trainor,” said Souter. “That’s something that only Huntsville can offer authentically. Nobody else has that story – Tom belongs to all Canadians, even though he was in Huntsville visiting the Trainors and he was in the park where so many of those seminal landscapes were painted, but Winnie belongs to Huntsville.”

Souter asked Nickalls to craft the story.

“I’m honoured that I was approached to do this and to do it in my hometown,” said Nickalls, who will be playing the part of Tom Thomson. “Roy (MacGregor) was kind enough to give me the green light to use his book Northern Light and has offered his time for rehearsals and the performance. And Sean Cotton will be playing original live music.”

The part of Winnie has not been cast, but Nickalls says he has some local actors in mind for the part. (UPDATE: Cydney Jones will play the part of Winnie. Greg Perras is directing.)

As for the story itself, it’s still in the works but Nickalls envisions an evening of vignettes backed by music from Cotton and interspersed with readings by MacGregor from his book Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him.

Image courtesy of Muskoka Heritage Place

“The story will be told through Winnie’s eyes – that’s the really local connection to Tom Thomson,” said Nickalls. “We all know about him, but this is more about the woman who loved him and the effect his death had on her. He was a great artist but he was also a womanizing drunk. I believe he was passionately in love with her, though. It was more than just a casual fling. The only mistake she made was falling in love with this man. It’s a heartbreaking love story and we want to try to tell the real story.”

MacGregor knew Trainor when he was a boy – she lived down the hill from his childhood home. He wrote in Northern Light (as shared in an excerpt in the Globe and Mail):

“I have spent half a century trying to square the Winnie I knew slightly with the Winnie I could know even less – the young Winnie who fell in love with Tom Thomson and, I have to believe, with whom Tom Thomson fell in love. That the two Winnies seem so different should come as no surprise, as I myself am much different from who I was as a boy, when she died. I carry this image of her as dark, large, sharp-tongued eccentric, to be feared, yet capable of great charm and surprising humour when she chose to deploy those characteristics. I have sought out the few available photographs of her as a young woman: tall, slim of waist; perfectly erect; a smile teasing her lips; high cheekbones; soft, dark eyes that seem to challenge and welcome the world at the same time, the barely tamed dark hair.

“There is no hurt yet in those eyes: These photographs were all taken before the summer of 1917. Yet in knowing what was to come, it is impossible look at the pictures of young Winnie and not feel great sadness for her.”

“When Winnie Knew” will be presented as part of a slate of activities planned for Huntsville’s Canada 150 celebrations and the 100^th anniversary of Tom Thomson’s death. Proceeds from the performance will be donated to the Huntsville Hospital Foundation.

UPDATE April 5, 2017: The show will run Sunday, July 16 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are now on sale at the Algonquin Theatre box office or online here.

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