Maternity

Woo was a natural mother. Sisterhood did not appeal to her. Ordinarily she ignored the griffon ladies but, let one of them have a litter of pups, and Woo was all coax—begging to share.

Cooing to the side of the box, pleading for just one peep—presently her hand would steal over to touch a pup. The mother dog growled, snapped!

When the pups grew and the mother left the box more. Woo, watching her chance, crept in and drew the pups close, cuddling, crooning, gibbering, kissing as she kissed me or kissed herself in the mirror. When the mother dog returned Woo would not give the puppies up. The dog then would come whimpering to me for help. It was the same with the old yard cat’s kittens. Woo clutched them to her with ecstatic hugs, ignoring the spitting mother cat.

“It’s a shame,” I said, and went to Vancouver to talk with the keeper of the monkey house in Stanley Park.

Lizzie looked after my creatures and the furnace in my absence. I returned to meet a furious, purple-in-the-face Lizzie coming out of the basement, picking gobs of sopped bread out of her carefully arranged grey hair. Milk trickled down her cheek.

“Abominable brute!” she exploded. “I stooped to feed the furnace; she crept along the pipe and deliberately emptied her food cup into my hair!”

I offered soothing and appropriate apologies. “Won’t your little patients enjoy that,” I said.

“Huh! How did you get on in Vancouver?”

“The keeper says monkey-breeding in captivity is very risky; often the mother, the baby or both die.”

“Then don’t risk it, Milly; don’t! Let well enough alone.”

So Woo had to cramp her maternal affection into loving other creatures’ babies. She handled the pups and kittens so tenderly that the mothers gave up protesting, and Woo philosophically accepted adopting in place of bearing.

Klee Wyck

Emily Carr wrote these twenty-one sketches after visiting and living with Native people, painting their totem poles and villages, many of them in wild and remote areas. She tells her stories with beauty, pathos and a vivid awareness of the comedy of people and situations.

The Book of Small

Emily Carr wrote these thirty-six sketches that relate anecdotes about her life as a young girl in the frontier town of Victoria. She notes: “There were a great many things that I only half understood, such as saloons and the Royal Family and the Chain Gang.”

The House of All Sorts

Emilly Carr wrote these forty-one stories of those hard-working days as landlord and the parade of tenants — young couples, widows, sad bachelors and rent evaders. In an additional twenty-five stories, she describes the mutual bonds of affection between her and her dogs.

Growing Pains

Completed just before Emily Carr died in 1945, Growing Pains tells the story of her life, beginning with her girlhood in pioneer Victoria and going on to her training as an artist in San Francisco, England and France. She writes about the frustration she felt at the rejection of her art by Canadians, of the years of despair when she stopped painting and of the unexpected vindication and triumph she felt when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them.

Heart of a Peacock

A collection of 51 short stories by the legendary writer and painter Emily Carr, arranged in themes such as her experiences with Native people, her adventures with various beloved creatures and her love of nature. Together, they underline Carr’s place as a writer with the sharp yet tender eye of an artist, with a deep feeling for the tragedies of life and with a rich sense of the comic.

Pause

While studying art in London, Emily Carr seriously undermined her health and was sent to a sanatorium for a complete rest cure. Bridling at the hospital’s rules, which prohibited excitement of any kind, the always rebellious Carr proceeded to make friends, raise birds, and cause trouble. In words and enchanting sketches, in Pause: A Sketchbook, Carr presents a funny, poignant account of her 18-month convalescence,

Hundreds and Thousands

Hundreds and Thousands consists of her journals from 1927 to 1941. She began keeping a journal in 1927, when, after years of her work being derided and ignored, came unexpected vindication and triumph when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them and encouraged her to overcome the years of despair when she stopped painting.

Opposite Contraries

Collected from Emily Carr’s private and public writings and edited by Susan Crean, these previously unpublished pieces reveal the outspoken artist at her most forthright. Expurgated sections from Carr’s journals detail her anguished meditations on her spiritual mission, musings about Native culture and the white community’s reaction to it, and thoughts about her family. Her groundbreaking 1913 "Lecture on Totems”, her first recorded writing on Native art and people, is also included, as are some of her most fascinating letters to friends and colleagues.

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