"From an early age, it is clear that Emily Carr is not like her sisters - not satisfied with the pious and rigid world she is expected to fit into. Her creative talent and fiercely independent spirit are far too strong to be suppressed by her father's wishes that she marry and settle down into polite white Vancouver society. Drawn to the danger and beauty of a vast wilderness and its people, Emily defies her family's better judgment, spurns suitors, and establishes herself as an art teacher, venturing off whenever possible to the wild coast of British Columbia. There she begins to paint the native tribal villages in an effort to portray the rich culture of these people, their canoes, totems, and artfully decorated communal houses before they are destroyed forever." "In Vreeland's novel, Carr's life becomes a meditation on the search for self and self-acceptance. Vreeland renders vivid portraits of Carr and the unconventional people to whom she is inevitably drawn: Sophie, a native basket maker; Harold, the son of missionaries who embraces indigenous cultures; Fanny, a New Zealand artist who spends the summer with Carr painting in the French countryside; and Claude, the French fur trader who steals her heart. From illegal potlatches in Mimkwamlis to prewar Paris, where her art was exhibited in the famed Salon d'Automne, to her emergence as a great artist compared with Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo, Carr's journey to prove her ability as an artist to herself and the world around her is a vibrant, inspiring pleasure."--BOOK JACKET.