The Legends of Vancouver

Pauline's writing and these stories had a major impact on my young life. These are some of the most humane stories you will find in any culture. To read a legend, click on the links listed here, or use the 'next' and 'back' links at the bottom of each page. As each legend is posted its title will become a link.

To learn more about Pauline, scroll down to read a brief history of her life below. For a Glossary of some of the more unusual terms you will encounter in these stories, click here

The Isle of Dead Men
Siwash Rock
The Recluse
The Two Sisters
The Lost Island
The Sea Serpent
The Lost Salmon-Run
The Flood
The Great Grey Archway
Point Grey
The Lure in Stanley Park
Deer Lake's Lost River

Emily Pauline Johnson was born on 10 March 1861 at Chiefs-wood, her family home on the Six Nations Indian Reserve near Brantford, Ontario.

Her father was a distinguished chief of the Mohawk nation, whose native-language family name, Tekahionwake (Double Wampum), dates back to the founding of the Iroquois confederacy in the fifteenth century, before the Europeans discovered North America.

His English-language surname, Johnson, was given to his family by his great-godfather Sir William Johnson, the famous eighteenth-century British Superintendant-General of the Mohawk who married Chief Joseph Brant's sister Molly.

After the Revolutionary War, Sir William's son and Chief Brant led the Mohawk loyalists, including the Tekahionwake family, out of the newly formed United States of America into British Canada. Pauline was proud of her father's native and adoptive ancestry, always signing her name "E. Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake."

She was equally proud of her mother, Emily Howells, who was the sister-in-law of the Anglican missionary to the reserve in the 1850s and the cousin of the famous American novelist William Dean Howells. Pauline admired her mother's courage in marrying a Mohawk and in raising her children as "Indians in spirit and patriotism," to use Pauline's own words.

From all accounts, Pauline's childhood was happy. Chiefs-wood was situated on the banks of the Grand River, and here Pauline played with her two brothers and her sister in the family's birch bark canoe. Her parents entertained not only Mohawk dignitaries but also British royalty, including three future Governor Generals of Canada, the Marquis of Lorne, the Earl of Dufferin, and the Duke of Connaught who became an honorary chief of the Mohawk and Pauline's "wolf-brother".

The family library at Chiefswood was well-stocked with the classics of English literature. "By the time I was twelve," Pauline once said, "I had read every line Scott ever wrote, every line of Longfellow, and much of Byron, Shakespeare and Emerson." Pauline's grandfather 'Smoke' Johnson was an accomplished storyteller and the last of the Mohawk loyalists able to read the Iroquois Book of Rites in the ancient language. Given this family background, one might say that Pauline was destined to become a teller of native legends and a literary performer.

E. Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake first began writing poetry for the Brantford Expositor and reading her verse at such occasions as the unveiling of a statue to Joseph Brant in 1886. Several years later she was invited to read her poetry for the Young Liberal Club of Toronto. Her poems were so well received that soon she was touring Canada, the United States, and Britain giving dramatic performances of her poetry and entertaining audiences of all ages with stories of her people. For almost two decades Pauline was Canada's most famous writer. In the golden age of public literary performances, before radio or television, she was a star. In the era of horse and buggy, people would make long, uncomfortable trips to hear her read and to see her decked out in her Mohawk costume of fringed buckskin dress, beaded robes, and feathered hair band. For the first time in Canadian history, a native writer was offering a glimpse of her culture.

In 1906 Pauline travelled to London, England, where she first met Chief Joseph Capilano of the Squohomish or 'Squamish' band of Central Coast Salish Indians who lived north of Vancouver at the head of Howe Sound in British Columbia. Chief Capilano and two fellow Salish chiefs had voyaged to England - the first West Coast native chiefs to do so - to protest violations of their treaty land and game rights to King Edward VII. Pauline not only befriended 'Chief Joe' but also assisted in gaining a royal audience for him. When she retired from the stage in 1909, she settled in Vancouver where she renewed her acquaintance with her 'tillicum skookum' or great friend Joseph Capilano. During long visits and canoe rides, he told her the tales of Salish culture she was to re-tell in Legends of Vancouver.

The publication of Legends of Vancouver is one of the most interesting stories in the history of Canadian publishing. In March 191O Chief Joe died and soon after Pauline began writing what she affectionately called the 'Legends of the Capilano.' These stories were published from time to time in the weekly magazine section of the Vancouver 'Daily Province,' for which she was paid about seven dollars each. She published twenty-two stories from April 1910 until January 1911 when her health failed her. She was dying of cancer.

In an effort to pay for her medical bills and living costs, a group of Pauline's friends created a Trust Fund in her name and decided to raise money by publishing fifteen of her 'Legends of the Capilano' in what they called 'Legends of Vancouver.'

A first edition of 1,000 copies was printed in 1911 for the Trust Fund by the Saturday Sunset Presses and sold on consignment to local Vancouver book and stationery stores. A second edition of 1, 000 copies was printed later in 1911 for the stationer Geo. S. Forsyth & Co. The Toronto firm of McClelland, Stewart and Goodchild published a so-called 'New Edition' in 1912 which featured a cover illustration by the Group of Seven founding artist. E. H. MacDonald.

The Trust Fund published a third edition of 10,000 copies in the same year and five more editions in 1913. Even in 1991 the sale of more than 10,000 copies of a book is considered a tremendous success; in 1912 it was almost unheard of. Much of this success can be attributed to Pauline's stage companion, Walter McRaye, who wrote tirelessly to friends and acquaintances they had made on concert tours, asking them to help Pauline by buying copies of this book.

Inspired by the friendship between a Mohawk and a Salish storyteller, Legends of Vancouver was published, sold, and initially read as an act of friendship. The first collection of native legends retold by a native artist, 'Legends of Vancouver' has become a classic of Canadian children's and native literature.

When Emily Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake died on 7 March 1913, she was buried, after cremation, in Stanley Park among her beloved 'Cathedral Trees.' Later a cairn was erected over her grave and dedicated to the 'memory of one whose life and writings were an uplift and a blessing to our nation.' This legend of Canada - the life and writings of E. Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake - has indeed become an integral part of our national identity.