Flint and Feather | Page 6

"The White Wampum," accepted by John Lane, of the
"Bodley Head." She carried with her letters of introduction from His
Excellency the Earl of Aberdeen and Rev. Professor Clark, of Toronto
University, which gave her a social and literary standing in London
which left nothing to be desired.
In London she met many authors, artists and critics, who gave this
young Canadian girl the right hand of fellowship; and she was received
and asked to give recitals in the drawing-rooms of many diplomats,
critics and members of the nobility.
Her book, "The White Wampum," was enthusiastically received by the
critics and press; and was highly praised by such papers as the
Edinburgh "Scotsman," "Glasgow Herald," "Manchester Guardian,"
"Bristol Mercury," "Yorkshire Post," "The Whitehall Review," "Pall
Mall Gazette," the London "Athenaeum," the London "Academy,"
"Black and White," "Westminster Review," etc.
Upon her return to Canada she made her first trip to the Pacific Coast,
giving recitals at all the cities and towns en route. Since then she has
crossed the Rocky Mountains nineteen times, and appeared as a public
entertainer at every city and town between Halifax and Vancouver.
In 1903 the George Morang Publishing Company, of Toronto, brought
out her second book of poems, entitled "Canadian Born," which was so
well received that the entire edition was exhausted within the year.
About this time she visited Newfoundland, taking with her letters of
introduction from Sir Charles Tupper to Sir Robert Bond, the then
Prime Minister of the colony. Her recital in St. John was the literary
event of the season, and was given under the personal patronage of His
Excellency the Governor-General and Lady McCallum, and the
Admiral of the British Flagship.
After this recital in the capital Miss Johnson went to all the small
seaports and to Hearts' Content, the great Atlantic Cable station, her

mission being more to secure material for magazine articles on the
staunch Newfoundlanders and their fishing villages than for the
purpose of giving recitals.
In 1906 she returned to England, and made her first appearance in
Steinway Hall, under the distinguished patronage of Lord and Lady
Strathcona, to whom she carried letters of introduction from the Right
Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada. On this
occasion she was accompanied by Mr. Walter McRaye, who added
greatly to the Canadian interest of the programme by his inimitable
renditions of Dr. Drummond's Habitant poems.
The following year she again visited London, returning by way of the
United States, where she and Mr. McRaye were engaged by the
American Chautauquas for a series of recitals covering eight weeks,
during which time they went as far as Boulder, Colorado. Then, after
one more tour of Canada, she decided to give up public work, settle
down in the city of her choice, Vancouver, British Columbia, and
devote herself to literature only.
Only a woman of tremendous powers of endurance could have borne
up under the hardships necessarily encountered in travelling through
North-Western Canada in pioneer days as Miss Johnson did; and
shortly after settling down in Vancouver the exposure and hardship she
had endured began to tell upon her, and her health completely broke
down. For more than a year she has been an invalid; and as she was not
able to attend to the business herself, a trust was formed by some of the
leading citizens of her adopted city for the purpose of collecting, and
publishing for her benefit, her later works. Among these is a number of
beautiful Indian legends which she has been at great pains to collect;
and a splendid series of boys' stories, which were exceedingly well
received when they ran recently in an American boys' magazine.
During the sixteen years Miss Johnson was travelling she had many
varied and interesting experiences. She has driven up the old Battleford
trail before the railroad went through, and across the Boundary country
in British Columbia in the romantic days of the early pioneers; and
once she took an 850-mile drive up the Cariboo trail to the gold-fields.

She was always an ardent canoeist, ran many strange rivers, crossed
many a lonely lake, and camped in many an unfrequented place. These
venturous trips she took more from her inherent love of nature and of
adventure than from any necessity of her profession.
After an illness of two years' duration Miss Johnson died in Vancouver
on March 7, 1913. The heroic spirit in which she endured long months
of suffering is expressed in her poem entitled "And He Said 'Fight On'"
which she wrote after she was informed by her physician that her
illness would prove fatal.
Time and its ally, Dark Disarmament
Have compassed me about;
Have massed their armies, and on battle
bent
My forces put to rout,
But though I fight alone, and fall, and die,