Literature:

Duncan Campbell Scott, “W.J. Phillips”, Canadian Art Series, Cat. No. 118, p. 58 as “Smoke, Lake of the Woods”;
Roger Boulet, “The Tranquility and the Turbulence, The Life and Work of Walter J. Phillips”, p. 231;
Nancy Green, Kate Rutherford, and Toni Tomlinson, “Walter J. Phillips”, illustrated in colour, pgs. 78 and 79

Note:

This print was reissued in 1936 as the ninth print in the "Winter Woodcuts" portfolio.

In 1928, in “The Canadian Art Scene”, Phillips provided the following commentary for his coastal scenes, “It would be hard to find two localities that differ so much in aspect as this and the West Coast—the one is imposing, dramatic, colossal: the other quiet, friendly and restricted. The coast scenery is on the largest possible scale; this lake is dependent for interest on such decorative trivialities as tree-traceries, sunlight and shadow, lichen-covered rocks, and translucent water.
 
If the lake wants in magnificence, if its waters lack the rhythmic movements of the sea, if its islands have not been pushed up very far, it still appeals with an intimacy that makes every rock and every tree a possible shrine of beauty. Here the pictorial interest, more often than not, centres in the foreground, and an arabesque of branches, a pattern of foliage, or rocks, and frequently boathouses, docks and boats and perhaps their reflections.” Toronto, 1928.