Book- Legends of Vancouver

Legends of Vancouver by E. Pauline Johnson

This 100th Anniversary Edition pays tribute to Pauline Johnson’s contribution to Vancouver’s cultural heritage and her enduring legacy of sharing some of Canada’s rich background of mythological stories.

Emily Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake (1861-1913), born a Mohawk princess, was a Canadian poet, storyteller, and entertainer. This collection of stories as told to her by Squamish Chief Joe Capilano represents one of her lasting achievements of cultural preservation.

Before her arrival on the West Coast, she was a proponent of Mohawk culture on stage and in her writings. She retired from the stage but continued to tell stories. The Vancouver legends were published separately at first and later published as a book.

We can still hear Johnson’s joy in discovering the area’s beauty and culture, most particularly the legends. The reader shares Johnson’s wonder and celebrates her more than 100-year-old writings.

This book is also a portrait of a very young Vancouver with its much loved Stanley Park, its rough-and-tumble gold diggers and its millennium-old first nations. It continues to be a classic of British Columbia literature.