[1] Representative of typical Canadian attitudes towards the environment at that time,[2] an article in the Owen Sound Sun reporting on Thomson's visit to the forest reserve wrote that "technology gave value to the landscape"[3] and placed emphasis on the mineral, forest, water-power, and fish and game resources rather than on any scenic beauty the land possessed.

(John) McRuer, Thomson wrote: We started in at Bisco and took a long trip on the lakes around there going up the Spanish River and over into the Mississauga [Mississagi] water we got a great many good snapshots of game—mostly moose and some sketches, but we had a dump in the forty-mile rapids which is near the end of our trip and lost most of our stuff—we only saved 2 rolls of film out of about 14 dozen.

The weather has been very rotton [sic] all through our trip never dry for more than 24 hours at a time and sometimes raining for a week steady...[8]Thomson's art director while at Grip Ltd., Albert Robson, identified Drowned Land as being painted on the Mississagi Forest Reserve canoe trip.

[12] It is similar to a sketch from the previous year, Near Owen Sound, in terms of colour, drawing and texture.

[10] Indeed, David Silcox has speculated that Drowned Land as well as other paintings may have been completed with a photograph as a memory aid given their "uncanny precision".

[14] The painting is especially notable for its skill of composition and precision, especially when compared with some of Thomson's other work from this period, such as The Canoe and Old Lumber Dam, Algonquin Park.