By Eric Andersen
Published: July 21, 2014
On a spring morning in 1933 at Brackendale’s Judd Slough, Emily Carr, then and still today British Columbia’s most renowned painter, christened a newly made dugout canoe. She named it the ‘Waterlily’ after Lillian Rae, her favourite niece whom she was here to visit.
Emily Carr’s account of her Brackendale stay is unique in all of her journal writing. It was a happy time – reuniting with Lillian’s family and also enjoying a surprise visit from two old and dear Squamish Nation friends, Sophie and Jimmy Frank.
Sophie and Jimmy had paddled up from North Vancouver to visit family and try to sell the canoe. Lillian’s husband Lawson Rae would be the buyer – to the delight of their two young boys.
Emily stayed in Brackendale a few weeks, enjoying “trips in the truck, and walks in the rain, and splashing through puddles, and watching for the clouds to pass, and dashing out to sketch.”
Emily Carr had made her mark as a writer earlier than as a painter. Her account of the Judd Road farm is a little sample of her special talent:
“What a tumble-up the farm was! Young chickens, rabbits, bees, children, washing, cooking, picture puzzles, picture painting, post-hole diggers, wire netting, shovels, brooms, school books and bags, lunch pails, clomping up and down stairs of hob-nail boots, groan of kitchen pump, dash of churn, hum of cream separator, and other sights and sounds and smells. And Lil’s voice roaring above all the hubbub, first at this one, then at that.”
Experiencing the mountain scenery of the Squamish area and PGE route had long been an ambition of Emily Carr. Now it was time for her to take on these mountains as a deliberate artistic challenge.
After picking up mail at the Brackendale General Store sent from her Group of Seven Painters friends in Toronto, Emily boarded the train north to Lillooet.
“The settling down in the train with the creatures comfortably arranged for, and my eye all agog to absorbe scenery. … Mountains towering – snow mountains, blue mountains, green mountains, brown mountains, tree-covered, barren rock, cruel mountains with awful waterfalls and chasms and avalanches, tender mountains all shining, spiritual peaks way up among the clouds.” [June 7, 1933]
Jim Harvey says
Thanks for the great story Eric. Do you have any idea of the location of the |Rae farm and if the ridge depicted in the background would be an ‘accurate’ portrayal of the actual scene?
Eric Andersen says
Jim, the Lawson and Lillian Rae dairy farm occupied the south side of Judd Road at its westerly end. Where the “Fisherman’s Park” entrance is by the slough is where the canoe in Emily’s account would have been launched. This was the last active dairy farm in the valley, under the Raes and then a couple of later operators, until the early 1960s. The landscape matches well. Here is a Squamish Library photo handy from a little bit east along Judd, to give an idea: http://squamishlibrary.digitalcollections.ca/judd-farm-1916;dc
Glenne Campbell says
Thanks Eric!!!
susan says
-I enjoyed this submission so much: Thank you for it. I have been really moved by Emily Carr’s art and writing for-(ever).. So special to see a watercolour sketch.. that i’d never seen. I feel that she truly was able to translate her attunement with (Nature) and honoured the (spirit – behind all things) with a great deal of sincerity.