Bill Steer, known as Back Roads Bill to many in Northern Ontario, is also the founder of the Canadian Ecology Centre.
Photo Credit: CBC/Bill Steer

Group of Seven’s inspiration in Northern Ontario

Bill Steer is the founder of the Canadian Ecology Centre.  He is also a part-time teacher at Canadore College in North Bay, Ontario, and known to many CBC radio listeners as ‘Back Roads Bill’.

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One of his recent forays off the beaten path took him in the footsteps of a member of the Group of Seven.  These are the legendary Canadian painters, that almost a century ago, ventured further into the wilderness of Northern Ontario and other parts of Canada, to capture what they saw, in what have now become iconic Canadian images.

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A segment of the painting called ‘Shoreline’ by A.Y Jackson. © CBC

Bill Steer was inspired by Jim and Sue Waddington’s book, ‘In the Footsteps of the Group of Seven‘, to find the inspiration for A. Y. Jackson’s painting called ‘Shoreline’  It’s on the northern shore of Lake Superior, near where Jackson once owned a cottage.

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The shoreline as it exists today on the north shore of Lake Superior © CBC

Bill Steer is passionate about Ontario’s vast north land and the extractive industries that take place there. He established the Canadian Ecology Centre to teach people about the reality of the north.

Currently he is taking a group of teachers around the gold mines in Timmins, Ontario, to show them how a modern mine operates.

Categories: Arts & Entertainment, Economy, Environment & Animal Life, Indigenous, International, Society
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