Wild Geese

I was visiting in Cariboo. A flock of wild geese in migration descended to feed in a grain field. Driving with two gun-lovers, I happened to pass that way, and we came upon the flock feeding. The roadway ran right alongside the field in which the wild geese were grounded. Such an immense flock was a rare and unforgettable sight. There were hundreds and hundreds of geese. You could hear the aggregate snap and shovel of their beaks feeding, nipping the grass, shovelling grain.

The gun man said to his wife, who also carried a gun, “Drive on. The birds will not heed the horses. Do not speak as you go. The old ganders will be on the listen and the lookout.”

The man slipped out of the rig while it was still going and crept behind a line of bushes that hid him, intending to stalk the flock from behind.

The great field was a spread of throb, movement: necks bobbing like black hooks as the birds’ heads worked up and down, up and down, cropping, shovelling, their grey bodies lovely against golden stubble—delicious colour. Look-out ganders were posted, heads in air, ready at slightest alarm to warn the flock.

I had never experienced a more thoroughly tingling joy than watching that sky multitude earthed. I had never been close to a flock of wild geese before. In spring and in autumn they rode high over our West during migration, zigzags of honkers, black dots, lofty and mysterious. As a child I had wondered and wondered about them. Grown-ups immediately said, “Hark, wild geese!” and then started talking of the changing season. I did not know the meaning of the word “migration”, nor did I till years after associate these high black dots with the bodies of geese.

Now I was grown up and here was a whole skyful of wild geese emptied at my feet! I thrilled through and through.

“Why doesn’t he shoot? Why doesn’t he shoot?” quivered the woman, her fingers stealing towards the trigger of her twenty-two. “That sentinel is getting nervous!”

She raised her gun and shot, just as there was a terrific bang from behind the bushes.

The gander screamed! A single movement and the flock rose, one living cloud! One goose lay still. He would never go with the flock again.

In a twinkling the geese were incredibly high. A clamour of honks fell down to us. Every bird was exactly spaced behind his fellow. Their formation was perfect: a V inverted with wide-spread sides, its point cutting space. The gunners, grumbling, shoved the goose’s warm body into the back of our rig, angry that he was not two.

How, I wondered, had the dead bird’s place in their sky flight been filled? No gap showed in the long, evenly-spaced lines.

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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