Five members of Canada's Group of 7 painted in the La Cloche area of Willisville, Grace Lake, Nellie Lake, Iroquois Bay and McGregor Bay. Hundreds of sketches and many, many notable canvases are from this small area of Northern Ontario.
Arthur Lismer painted and stayed in the Iroquois Bay/McGregor Bay area and he and his family were regular visitors at the Spreadboroughs in The Pool and the Jenkins in Iroquois Bay.
Lismer stayed with Stuart and Eleanor Jenkins on more than one occasion and in the Jenkins' 'Early homesteaders at McGregor Bay' booklet this story is shared.
"Stuart was also a skilled landscape painter, although he insisted on exact reproductions. One summer, Arthur Lismer, the renowned Group of Seven artist, came to paint the magnificent McGregor Bay landscape. He and Stuart had many disputes about art. On one occasion, Stuart said to Lismer, "Egad sir, you can't draw or you wouldn't paint such blobs!" Lismer is reputed then to have drawn an exact representation of a local scene, which he gave to Stuart, saying "Now when you frame this, promise that neither the date nor signature will show. That is not the way that I wish to be known!"
