Tom Longboat among athletes honoured by Quebec artist/runner
Jeffery Woodrow's "singlet series" honours some of Canada's most celebrated runners, including Tom Longboat, the first Indigenous winner of the Boston Marathon, on the 139th anniversary of his birth
Wednesday is Tom Longboat Day in Ontario, a day to celebrate the gifted Onondaga runner and Boston Marathon champion every year on his birthday. Quebec artist, runner and triathlete Jeffery Woodrow has created a limited-edition series of three-dimensional multimedia pieces honouring famous Canadian runners, including Longboat.
The piece depicts the singlet worn by Longboat, crafted in paper and mounted on a black foam-core background. Created in the shape of the body of the athlete wearing it, the singlet seems filled with kinetic energy as the runner waits on the starting line.
Longboat was born in 1886 (some sources say 1887) on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ont. At age 12, he was forced to attend the local residential school; according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, he escaped–twice–and did not return after his second escape.
In 1907, at age 20, he became the first Indigenous athlete to win the Boston Marathon; he went on to compete in the 1908 Olympic marathon in London, but did not finish. In 1916, he enlisted to serve in WWI, becoming a dispatch runner (i.e. a runner who carried messages between units) with the 107th Pioneer Battalion, and was twice wounded.
Jeffery Woodrow’s Singlet Series
Some other Canadian runners memorialized in a “singlet” by Woodrow include, among others, Ed Whitlock, Jacqueline Gareau and Harry Jerome. Woodrow spent several years living, teaching and creating in South Korea and Thailand before moving his family back to Canada during the pandemic; originally from Bradford, Ont., he and his family selected Sainte-Adèle, Que., for their new home, due to its proximity to nature and its more modest cost of living.
He explains that, as a former stay-at-home father of three (his wife is former CBC producer Tori Allen), he’s passionate about creating art that reflects his interests: “I just want to focus on Canada,” he told us in a recent interview. “If I’m going to make art, I want to make the art I want to make, and I want it to represent what I’m interested in.”
Woodrow creates around 10 copies of each piece, donating a few (he donated a “Tom Longboat” to a local school named for the runner, for example) and offering the remaining pieces for sale on his website.
