Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)

Pauline Johnson (1861-1913) was a widely admired writer and performer of Mohawk and English background whose work celebrated her Aboriginal heritage. Born in Ontario in 1861, she spent much of her life performing across North America and Britain before moving to Vancouver’s West End in the early 1900s. She wrote a series of stories based on local myths related to her by First Nations Chiefs and Elders that were serialized in the Vancouver Province and published in the book Legends of Vancouver. She is credited for coining the name “Lost Lagoon” – an inlet in Stanley Park where she enjoyed canoeing that disappeared (or was “lost”) at low tide.

After her death in 1913, Johnson’s ashes were buried near Siwash Rock, in Stanley Park. She is the only known person legitimately buried in Stanley Park since 1886. The Women’s Canadian Club of Vancouver erected a monument in her honour to mark the burial site. They initially hoped to erect a much more elaborate monument designed by Charles Marega (Vancouver’s premier sculptor) that was to cost $30,000, but found fundraising efforts difficult with the onset of World War I. The monument that came to be – a “rusticated fountain” running down boulders featuring an etching of Johnson’s profile – was finally erected in 1922 at a cost of $1,200. In 1945, Johnson was designated a Person of National Historic Significance.

Source

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations, Vancouver & Beyond: Pictures and Stories from the Postcard Era, 1900-1914 by Fred Thirkell and Bob Scullion, “Ninety-year-old Statue in Vancouver Park Honours First Nations Icon,” by Jonny Wakefield in Vancouver Courier

More information

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pauline-johnson/