One of the odder people who influenced Vancouver was Pauline Johnson, born of an English mother and a three-quarter Mohawk father on an Ontario reserve in 1861.
As a girl, Johnson emerged as a gifted writer of poems and prose, and — more important — a commanding stage personality. For two decades, she rode the rails, disembarking in towns and cities to give riveting recitals of her Indian-related pieces, invariably dressed as the native princess she claimed to be.
She was a complex character: both fascinating and wayward. She is said to have sought the attention of men, manipulating them by appealing to their vanity. On the other hand, reports a biographer, women adored her because she appeared vulnerable and pure.
Late in her life, Johnson rented rooms in the 1100 block of Howe Street in an area that was then still largely residential, not far from her beloved English Bay and Stanley Park. Among her visitors was Chief Joe Capilano of the Squamish Indian band, who, though reportedly almost “wordless,” would periodically relate one of the wondrous tales of his people.
Johnson wrote down these stories, reshaped them through her highly romantic imagination (and not to everyone’s satisfaction), then saw the collection published in 1911 as Legends ofVancouver. Johnson died in her home in 1913. Her ashes are buried in a lovely grove oftrees at Ferguson Point (Stanley Park, just north ofThe Teahouse Restaurant) and not far from Siwash Rock, the subject of one of the myths in the Capilano collection.
Ironically, it was the Vancouver chapter of the Women’s Canadian Club — 750 wives of Vancouver’s business elite of the day — who organized a solemn funeral cortege through the city. They later built this rough-hewn memorial, adorned with a not entirely successful carved profile of a youthful Johnson dressed as “Tekahionwake,” the name ofa great-grandfather she assumed as her own. Admirers were soon troubled by the fact that Pauline faces into the trees, rather than toward her beloved Siwash Rock. Further, her head is bound with braids, a style she never wore; and the piece doesn’t really resemble her. Today, it remains as it was. On the other hand, there was always something a little skewed about Johnson’s life, public and private, so this posthumous symbolism may be quite in keeping with it.
Her best-known collection of poems remains Flint and Feather (1912). Lost Lagoon, where she frequently paddled her canoe, was named for one of these poems.
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