Search results for ""author kathryn bridge""

An intimate portrait of privilege and struggle, scandal and accolade, from the Old World to the new colonies of Vancouver’s Island and British Columbia.At the age of 33, Sarah Crease left her home in England to travel with her young family to a farflung outpost of the British Empire on the Pacific coast of North America. The detailed journals, letters and artwork she created over the next half century as she and her husband, Henry, established themselves in the New World offer a rich window into the private life and views of an English colonist in British Columbia.This is a woman’s story in her own words. It is also a story of the times she lived in, and of how her class, social standing and role as a settler shaped her relationships with the world around her. Henry & Self is the personal account of a remarkable woman who lived through nearly a century of colonial history, but it is also a unique perspective on the beliefs and motivations that shaped that century.

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In 1858, reports of gold found on the Fraser River spurred tens of thousands of people—mostly men—to rush into the territory we now call British Columbia. They came with visions of fortune in their eyes. The lucky ones struck it rich, but most left penniless or died trying for the motherlode. Some stayed behind and helped build the colony and the province of British Columbia.

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The vivid, personal accounts of four women who lived and travelled as settlers in early British Columbia“…a cloud passing away from the face of the moon revealed a band of wild horses bearing down upon us at a full gallop. As they came near and saw us they divided into two groups, passing by on either side. Had the moon not come out they would probably have become entangled in our tent ropes, and we should not have lived to tell the tale.”—Violet Sillitoe, between Osoyoos and PentictonThe women in this book were trailblazers. The frontiers they lived on were not only geographical but personal. As they left the drawing rooms of England and eastern Canada for new lives in the far West, social patterns were disrupted, and the status quo dissolved. On the wagon roads and river boats of nineteenth-century British Columbia, they found risks, opportunities and freedoms far beyond those familiar to their more settled contemporaries. By Snowshoe, Buckboard and Steamer tells four extraordinary stories of life on the unruly edge of empire.Winner of the 1998 BC Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing.

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In 1899, at age 27, Emily Carr travelled to London to attend art school. She spent almost five years in England, and in this time her life completely changed. She returned to Canada in 1904 a mature woman, eyes widened from living abroad, chastened because of ill health and technically proficient as an artist.Historian Kathryn Bridge takes a fresh look at Emily Carr's time in England. She reveals new evidence that fills in many of the gaps in our knowledge of this important phase of Carr's life, and she documents important connections with people that the artist maintained throughout her life. She illustrates her findings with historical photographs and Carr's own sketches, paintings and "funny books", some never published before. Altogether, this book gives readers an entertaining second look into a pivotal time in the life of one of Canada's most famous artists. Three of Emily Carr's funny books are included in this volume: A London Student Sojourn, in which Carr makes fun of life in Mrs Dodd's Guest House, where she stayed while attending the Westminster School of Art. Kendal & I, recalling the day she and her friend Hannah Kendall attempted in vain to watch the funeral procession of Queen Victoria. The Olsson Student, a comical look at a painting excursion into the woods during her art-school days in St Ives, Cornwall.

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Culled from the hand-written pages in old-fashioned scribblers and almost-forgotten typescripts amid drafts for her published stories, Unvarnished features among the last unpublished and highly personal writings of the iconic Canadian author and artist Emily Carr.This highly readable manuscript—edited by Royal BC Museum curator emerita Kathryn Bridge and illustrated with sketches and photographs from the BC Archives—spans nearly four decades, from 1899 to 1944. In an almost stream-of-consciousness outpouring of stories, Carr chronicles her early years as an art student in England, her life-altering sojourn in France and subsequent travels to Indigenous villages along the coast, her encounters with the Group of Seven, conversations with artist Lawren Harris, and her sketching trips in the “Elephant” caravan in the company of a quirky menagerie. Also included are stories written in hospital recovering from a stroke, a particularly vulnerable time in her life.Emily Carr’s books have remained in nearly continuous print since the 1940s. Unvarnished is a fresh addition to her enduring oeuvre, to be enjoyed as a complement to her other writings or as a jewel in its own right.

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