[7] Eventual Group of Seven founder, J. E. H. MacDonald, would later say that the northern movement and search for a new Canadian art began with the work of Cruikshank and George Agnew Reid.

Ploughing, Lower St. Lawrence (c. 1899, Art Gallery of Ontario) reveals his attention to the environment of Canada: it is a landscape subject of habitants in rural Quebec.

The first is a single undated note from Cruikshank to professor James Mavor, arranging to bring a "Tomson" [sic] to meet him.

[14] The second is a letter from H. B. Jackson to Blodwen Davies, writing, "Tom studied from life & the antique in art school.

Thomson's painting, reputed to be his first oil, Young Man with a Team of Horses, though modest, is said to have caused Cruikshank to tell him, he'd better "keep on".