Maurice Haycock’s career as an artist was the result of a chance meeting with A. Y. Jackson. Haycock was a prominent research scientist at the Department of Mines in Ottawa and was aboard a supply ship in the Canadian Arctic in 1927 when he met Jackson and was inspired to begin painting.

Their shared interests meant that, in 1943, Haycock was invited to accompany Jackson on a painting trip in Charlevoix where the two became firm friends. They continued painting together for the next thirty years, with expeditions far into Canada’s north as well as in locations from BC to Labrador. Their regular sketching trips were mostly closer to home, in Algoma, Georgian Bay, the Eastern Townships, the Laurentians and the Ottawa Valley.

In 1969, Haycock was the first artist to paint at the North Pole, while assisting a research team there and his extensive travels and painting trips across Canada’s North between 1926 and 1987 earned him the title Canada’s Arctic Artist. A tragic fire destroyed a large collection of his paintings in 2003 but a book titled “On-Site with Maurice Haycock, Artist of the Arctic” was published posthumously in 2007.

Photo courtesy of the Haycock family archive