Canadian Authors and the Places That Inspired Them
What inspires you to write? Many of Canada's literary talents
have found inspiration in writing about places which held
significance to them. These writers are now stamped in the
Canadian consciousness as are the places they immortalized in their
works. Their homes have become commemorative testaments to
their creative inspiration, and places of pilgrimage for readers
wishing to know more about the basis for this inspiration.
Our literary landscape is celebrated in many designated historic
places on the Canadian Register of Historic Places associated with
the writers who were members of the Canadian Authors Association in
its formative years.
In 1921, the Canadian Authors Association was founded in
Montréal by authors who were concerned with promoting and
protecting their work. One of its founding members was
Stephen Leacock (1869-1944). Between 1915 and 1925, Leacock
was one of the leading humourists in the English-speaking world,
and his
masterpiece Sunshine
Sketches of a Little Town (1912) was written near Orillia,
Ontario on the shores of Lake Couchiching. Leacock purchased
property on the lake's edge in 1908 and built a small cottage, then
constructed a much larger one in 1928. At this place, which
he named "The Old Brewery Bay," Leacock wrote, gardened,
hobby farmed, fished, sailed, and entertained. This
landscape, with its mix of woods, open land, and grand lake views,
provides a quiet place for artistic contemplation any writer could
appreciate.
One of Leacock's contemporaries was Bliss Carman (1861-1929), an
internationally recognized poet in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Carman is known for his evocative
descriptions of Atlantic Canada's landscape. Born in
Fredericton, New Brunswick Carman spent his childhood in a house on
Shore Street, now known as the Bliss Carman House. Many of
his early acclaimed works of poetry, included in Songs of
Vagabondia (1894) and Low Tide at Grand Pré: A Book of
Lyrics (1894), were inspired by this place. In the
1920s, Carman was recognized by the Canadian Author's Association
as Canada's unofficial poet laureate, was elected to the Royal
Society, and was awarded the Lorne Pierce Medal for distinguished
service to literature.
Another contemporary writer was Lucy Maud Montgomery
(1874-1942). Her books about life on Prince Edward Island are
well-loved in Canada and around the world (even the Duchess of
Cambridge, Kate Middleton is a fan!), and many people know that Green Gables House was the inspiration and
setting for her most famous novel Anne of Green Gables
(1908). But fewer people may realize that two other historic
houses are also linked to this prolific writer. One of them
is a modest 1874 residence located in the small town of New London,
PEI, now known as the Lucy Maud Montgomery Birthplace; the other is
the Leaskdale Manse in Uxbridge, Ontario.
This latter place - a somber late-Victorian middle class house - is
where Montgomery lived during one of the most productive and
successful periods of her career: between 1911 and 1926, it was at
this place that she wrote 11 of her 22 novels. It was also
the setting of her unhappy personal life, details of which are
revealed in the journals she kept from this period.
Nellie McClung (1873-1951) also belonged to the Canadian Authors
Association. Many know McClung as a political activist: her
role in the suffrage movement gave women the right to vote, and as
one of the "Famous Five" in the "Persons" court case, she helped
bring about a landmark change in women's rights in Canada.
But McClung also had a successful and prolific writing career. Born
in Chatsworth, Ontario McClung moved first to Manitou, Manitoba
with her husband, and then to Winnipeg in 1911, where she was not
only active in the local political scene, but also a popular
author. Her first novel, Sowing the Seeds in Danny
(1908) was a national bestseller, and led the way for the
publication of 15 more books (nine novels and seven non-fiction
works). In 1914, she moved to Edmonton, was elected to the
Alberta legislature in 1921, and in 1923, moved to a Tudor Revival house in Calgary. Most of
McClung's important political and social victories occurred while
she lived here (1923-1935), and from this house she penned most of
her novels, essays and newspaper articles. 
By the time the Canadian Author's Association was formed,
Winnipeg's Reverend Charles Gordon's (1860-1937) writing career was
past its peak. For over 20 years, Gordon had written under
the pen name Ralph Connor, and his novels, including The Man
From Glengarry (1901) and The Sky Pilot in No Man's
Land (1919), combined melodrama and gripping adventure with
the message of religious salvation and hope. At the height of
his career in 1913, he built a grand house in a secluded Winnipeg
neighbourhood. Overlooking the Assiniboine River, the
property has a landscaped lawn, shrubbery, flowerbeds and trees,
and the interior has marvellous exposed beam ceilings, rich
quarter-cut oak paneling with extensive dark woodwork, and many
carved details. It is from here that Gordon wrote a number of
his novels and entertained his friends. In the 1930s, he
served two terms as president of the Canadian Authors
Association.
Despite their need for a
stable quiet home, writers are generally a restless lot. Mazo
de la Roche (1879-1961) certainly embodied this restless
spirit. During her childhood, Roche moved 17 times.
During her productive writing career (which included 23 novels, 50
short stories, and 13 plays), she made 19 sea voyages to various
parts of the world; lived in numerous Ontario locales (including
Newmarket, Aurora, Richmond Hill, Galt, Acton, Bronte, Clarkson,
Oakville, York Mills, Forest Hill, and Toronto) as well as in
Québec, Nova Scotia, New England, and in 19 different residences in
England! This quest for a home seems to have found a
permanent place in her saga of novels set at a fictional Ontario
estate called Jalna. She wrote the first book of the
series in the mid 1920s while living in a cottage in Clarkson (now
part of Mississauga) Ontario, located near a house named Benares. This mid-19th century
farmhouse was, at least in part, the inspiration for the fictional
Jalna Estate.
Another restless soul was
the artist Emily Carr (1871-1945), who travelled extensively to
Europe and along the British Columbia coast in search of artistic
inspiration and a place to call home. As well as being a
painter, Carr was also a writer, and drew much inspiration from her
childhood home in Victoria B.C. Built by her father in 1864
in a picturesque Italianate style, the Emily Carr House was where her desire to create
and her appreciation of art began. Close to Beacon Hill Park and
the shoreline, the landscape played an important role in Emily's
appreciation of her natural environment. The house was
featured prominently in all her written work, and Carr provides
particularly vivid descriptions of this home in The Book of
Small (1942).
Though too young to be part of the founding group of writers in
the Canadian Authors Association, Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983) is
still worth mentioning because of her groundbreaking work in the
French language. Her first novel, Bonheur D'Occasion/The
Tin Flute (1945), was a
commercial success, and she became an overnight
literary star when the book won the Governor General's Literary
Award. This novel, as well as the psychologically dark
Alexandre Chenevert (1954), gave gritty realistic
portrayals of life in wartime and postwar Montréal. Roy is
also known for her nostalgic chronicle of early 20th
century life in Winnipeg's French quarter, St. Boniface (La
Petit Poule D'eau/Where Nests the Water Hen, 1950). From
1950 onwards, she lived in Château St. Louis in Québec City.
Her childhood home in St. Boniface is now a National Historic Site.
These authors - and others - helped bring Canadian writing onto
the world stage. In doing so, they drew inspiration from
homes and landscapes that helped define our national
identity. These same places inspire us today as we continue
to tell stories about ourselves.