Hello kindred spirits, and welcome to the MaudCast, the podcast of the L.M. Montgomery Institute, broadcasting from the beautiful campus of the University of Prince Edward Island. And here we are with another great episode!
In S03E03, we’re chasing hidden links between two Canadian originals: our very own L.M. Montgomery and the painter and writer Emily Carr. Born on opposite coasts and just a few years apart—Carr in Victoria, BC, in 1871, Montgomery on Prince Edward Island, in 1874—both were shaped by an artistic vocation that captured them when they were little. With practiced skill and fierce ambition—and by decades of life writing that blurred the line between memoir and myth-making—they became the kind of Canadian icons to be memorialized by postage stamps, the Royal Canadian Mint, and—one of their nation’s highest pop culture honours—their own Heritage Minute minidocs.
One became the great visual storyteller of the Canadian landscape; the other became the voice of an island; and together, Islanders on the opposite ends of a newborn nation, they shaped the ways we define what it means to be Canadian.
Prompted by a couple of fascinating scholars—Bonnie Tulloch and Pascale Halliday—I wanted to know what happens when we read them side by side. Naturally, when all three of us were on campus, I invited them to sit down for a MaudCast chat, and I’d love to share it with you all now.
At the time we were all together in the MaudCast studio, Pascale was Executive Director of the Emily Carr House in Victoria, British Columbia. Perhaps feeling the call to the East that drew me back to the Island from BC lo and many years ago, Pascale has since moved to New Brunswick to become Visitor Program Manager at Kings Landing Historical Settlement, where she helps us to walk around for a bit in Canada’s past. As noted in the pod, Pascale hosted the Klondike Gold Rush history podcast with her father, worth checking out.
Bonnie Tulloch is a scholar and teacher who completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia shortly before we recorded our conversation. She is also one of the recipients of the Elizabeth Epperly Emerging Scholars award, the subject of season 1, episode 12 of the MaudCast—where, if I remember correctly, she flipped the studio and took control of the host microphone for a bit. I’d encourage you to check it out!
So settle in, and let’s spend some time popping in and out of the imaginative doors of two famous literary houses—Montgomery’s Green Gables and the Emily Carr House.
Farewell, Brenton (MaudCast Host)
You can find the MaudCast on Podbean, Spotify, and leading podcast platforms. See the full Show Notes and Credits on our Podbean host. Direct link to episode: https://themaudcast.podbean.com/e/maudcast-s03e03-emily-carr-lm-montgomery-and-literary-houses-of-dreams-with-bonnie-tulloch-and-pascale-halliday-1789394249/
A Pilgrim in Narnia links from this post:
See also:
