Laurie Carter, author of Emily Carr’s BC, a trilogy about the B.C. artist’s journeys around the province, spoke at the Osoyoos branch of the Okanagan Regional Library on Sept. 25. Her books are available at the library. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)

By Vanessa Broadbent

Osoyoos Times

B.C. artist Emily Carr’s artwork is known across the world, but the story of her time in the Okanagan not so much.

Laurie Carter, the author of Emily Carr’s BC, a trilogy exploring Carr’s travels around the province, presented at the Osoyoos branch of the Okanagan Regional Library on Sept. 25.

Carter explored Carr’s visit to the Okanagan in winter of 1922, although the trip was a “nightmare.”

Accompanied by her dog Adam, Carr traveled to Kelowna by Kettle Valley Rail to Penticton and then by boat up Okanagan Lake to Kelowna.

“We don’t know who she stayed with there, she didn’t tell us. What she did tell us is that she immediately got a terrible flu bug and she was six weeks or two months in bed, that was it. She was really, really sick,” Carter said.

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When she was well enough to travel again, Carr made her way back to Penticton. However, while waiting at the Penticton train station, Adam was spooked by the loud trains and ran off.

“So here’s this poor woman, she’s barely able to stand, and she’s completely out of money. She has to take this train home – she must – and her dog has just run off,” Carter said.

The station master told Carr to hop on the train and her dog would be found and taxied to meet her at the next station. But the dog wasn’t found and Carr returned to Victoria alone.

Carter set out to find Carr’s classified ad in the Penticton Herald.

“Sure enough, there it was: ‘Lost on March 14 in Penticton, large gray sheepdog, by Herald reward given.’”

People kept spotting the dog but couldn’t catch it, and the dog ran wild in Penticton for 18 months.

“Finally one lady connected and the dog wasn’t afraid with her and came to her and she was able to catch him and take care of him and she shipped him back to Emily,” Carter said.

“The dog lived with Emily for the rest of its natural life.”

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Carr also had one connection to Osoyoos: Anthony Walsh, a teacher at the Nk’Mip Day School on the Osoyoos Indian Band.

Under Walsh’s tutelage from 1931 to 1941, the day school students became known for their visual and performing art.

“In 1941 he left the school but he had loved it there and a really important part of this was the art that these children were doing,” Carter said.

Walsh joined the military and was on Vancouver Island where he met with Carr.

“They talked together about art and about the Indigenous children and how she felt that worked and white attitudes toward the children and all that sort of thing,” Carter said.

More stories about Emily Carr’s travels across the province are detailed in Carter’s trilogy Emily Carr’s BC, available online at chapters.indigo.ca, as well as the Osoyoos library.