🌺 Emily Carr and the War Years: Life in Victoria During WWI
November 11th — Armistice Day, now known as Remembrance Day — always invites us to pause, to listen to the echoes of another time. While the world marks the end of the Great War in 1918, I’ve been reflecting on what life was like here on the West Coast — especially through the eyes of Emily Carr, our beloved artist and storyteller.
Emily was born in 1871, so when the First World War began in 1914, she was already in her forties — not a young painter starting out, but a woman who had lived through disappointment, frustration, and fierce independence.
🏠 The House of All Sorts
By 1913, Emily had returned to Victoria from her travels to Indigenous villages along the coast. Full of vision and courage, she opened a boarding house on Simcoe Street — a place she called “The House of All Sorts.”
What she hoped would bring financial stability soon became a daily battle. Tenants came and went. Repairs piled up. Emily scrubbed, mended, cooked, and hauled water until her body ached. She was a woman trying to stay afloat in a world that didn’t yet value her art or her spirit.
Yet through the weariness, she kept a small corner of her soul reserved for painting — sometimes just quick sketches, sometimes notes for ideas she’d revisit years later.
🐕 The Dog Years
After the war years, Emily shifted again — this time into raising dogs, particularly Old English Sheepdogs. She became one of the top breeders in Canada, showing her dogs and even writing about them.
Between the chores, the noise, and the care of over 300 dogs, painting seemed far away — yet these years built the resilience and observation that would later burst out in her art.
🕊️ Victoria During the Great War
Life in Victoria between 1914 and 1918 was complex — a blend of patriotism, anxiety, and the quiet endurance of an isolated city.
- ⚓ Esquimalt Naval Base buzzed with military activity, and ships came and went loaded with men, goods, and hope.
- 🎖️ Families gathered for fundraising teas, parades, and knitting circles, sending parcels overseas.
- 🍞 Rationing affected daily life: sugar, flour, and butter became scarce, and gardens became essential.
- 🦠 By 1918, the Spanish Flu struck Vancouver Island hard, closing schools and churches, claiming thousands of lives just as peace was declared.
Victoria, known for being “more British than Britain,” was both elegant and constrained — corsets, tea times, and strict manners — but also starting to soften. The war, loss, and distance changed people. Women took on new roles; society began to shift.
🎨 Emily’s Spirit Through It All
While Emily wasn’t painting her great forest works yet, her artistic soul never slept. She wrote later about that time as one of struggle and self-reliance — years that tested her courage.
Her art, when it finally re-emerged in the 1920s, carried the power of survival. You can see the echoes of the war years in her brushstrokes — the loneliness, the endurance, the strength of roots and trees that weather every storm. 🌲
❤️ Then and Now
As we stand here today, on Remembrance Day, we think of Emily and the world she lived in — a world shaken by war, yet full of quiet acts of bravery.
Much has changed — no gas lamps, no ration books, no horses in the streets — and yet, some things feel the same. We’re still learning how to care for each other, how to rebuild, how to honour sacrifice and hold compassion in our daily lives.
Emily’s life reminds us that art, perseverance, and empathy are forms of remembrance too.
🌺 “May we remember not just the soldiers, but the artists, mothers, teachers, and dreamers who kept the spirit of humanity alive.”
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