Like other members of the Group of Seven he was trained as a Commercial Artist and for many years made his living by that means. He apprenticed to a Montreal lithographer at the age of 12, and though he later spent two and a half years in France studying painting, he was soon back in Canada paying his rent by designing cigar labels. In 1920, with Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer, Frank Carmichael, Fred Varley, James MacDonald and Frank Johnston, he formed the most famous exhibitors' group in the history of Canadian painting: the Group of Seven. In the following years he painted the Arctic, the West Coast, the Prairies, and the North Woods, as well as his beloved St. Lawrence, where his countless sketching expeditions earned him the nickname Pere Raquette- Pappa Snowshoe.