Jesus of Georgian Bay: Stained glass window in Ont. church honours the Holy Family, with a nod to Tom Thomson

LEITH, Ont. – The first thing you notice at Tom Thomson’s grave in winter is the little cluster of paintbrushes bursting like flowers through the snow.

Look closer and you read that it is in fact three graves, also containing the great painter’s infant brother James Brodie Thomson and maternal grandfather Kenneth Mathison.

Sweeping the snow off the base reveals painted rocks frozen into place, little tributes from pilgrim artists to this rural churchyard northeast of Owen Sound, Ont.