Breaking News: The Canadian Group of Seven Has Moved to Siberia

More about Breaking News: The Canadian Group of Seven Has Moved to Siberia

Well, it finally happened.

The Group of Seven packed up their paintboxes, looked at another Canadian housing bill, another smoke-filled summer, and apparently said, “You know what? Siberia looks affordable.”

Russian officials welcomed them with open arms, unlimited birch forests, and enough dramatic skies to keep Lawren Harris busy until the next ice age. Within weeks they’d produced four hundred masterpieces, three hundred sketches, and one suspiciously beautiful painting of a moose wearing a fur hat.

Canadian art critics were devastated.

“We always thought they painted Canada because they loved it,” one curator admitted. “Turns out they just really liked enormous trees and not paying two million dollars for a cabin.”

Meanwhile, Canadians responded the only way Canadians know how.

“We’re happy for them.”

No, we’re not.

The paintings coming out of Siberia are apparently so spectacular that even the wolves have started standing quietly in front of them, nodding appreciatively before wandering off to contemplate the meaning of light on snow.

Back home, Ottawa announced a task force to investigate why one of Canada’s greatest artistic movements had emigrated.

After eighteen months and a consultant’s report costing forty-seven million dollars, the official conclusion was: “More study is required.”

Mark Twain once joked that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Canada seems determined to prove that reports of its artistic confidence are merely… delayed.

To be fair, Siberia does have some advantages: mountains, rivers, endless forests, and nobody asking whether your painting could be turned into a condo development.

The only real losers are Canadian calendars. Every January now features “Autumn Near Novosibirsk” instead of Algonquin Park, and somehow it still feels strangely familiar.

So if you hear someone sighing over a magnificent northern landscape, don’t assume it’s Ontario anymore.

It might just be a Canadian painter in Siberia, quietly wondering why they had to leave the country they loved in order to paint it even better.