White Mountain Academy of the Arts
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The White Mountain Academy of the Arts was an art school based in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada. Formally opened to students in 1998, the academy sought to combine European and First Nations approaches to painting, photography, graphic design, and other arts forms.[1] James Bartleman, the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, became an honorary patron in August 2004.[2]
The original committee which sought to establish the school, the Northern Institute of the Arts Planning Commission, acquired the building, a former Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) research laboratory, in 1998.[3]
White Mountain was located in a fairly isolated area in Northern Ontario, and it never received enough students or donations to survive as an institution. It folded in 2006,[4] after failing to secure status as a degree-granting institution. During its operation, however, it did grant its own certificates and diplomas, and offered degree programming in collaboration with OCAD University in Toronto, leading to a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA). It only offered its four-year program to one cohort of eleven students. However, many subsequently transferred to OCAD in Toronto or other fine arts programs.[5]