Marilyn Jones | Emily Carr Chronicler

A Day in the Life of Emily Carr, the Elephant & Friends

Published: 10 September, 2025
Written by Marilyn Jones

In 1933, after years of dreaming of owning one, Emily Carr purchased a small travel trailer that would change the rhythm of her creative life.  To Carr, it was more than just a vehicle—it was liberation. She spotted the travel trailer with a for sale sign posted to it. A small canvas topped , metal trailer that was a bit worse for wear. It became more of a personage than a thing that she…

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The Book of Small: The Stories That Made Emily Carr Famous

Published: 7 September, 2025
Written by Marilyn Jones

The Book of Small is a collection of thirty-six word sketches in which Emily Carr–four decades later–relates 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 young Emily, who gave herself the nickname “Small,” was an intense, observant and sensitive yet rebellious child, who…

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Before the Totems: Emily & Alice in Alaska 1907

Published: 5 September, 2025
Written by Marilyn Jones

In the summer of 1907, Emily Carr and her sister Alice set out on an adventurous three week holiday to Alaska—a journey that would have a major impact on Emily’s life and art. The pair left from Seattle on August 18th, 1907, on the cruise ship ‘S.S. Princess Royal’ This would be Carr’s first direct encounter with the Indigenous villages of the Northwest Coast, and it played a formative role in the development of…

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