Pauline Johnson - Legacy and Honours

Legacy and Honours

• In 1922, the city of Vancouver erected a monument in Pauline Johnson's honour at her well-loved Stanley Park.
• 1945, Johnson was designated a Person of National Historic Significance.
• In 1961, on the centennial of her birth, Johnson was celebrated with a commemorative stamp bearing her image, "rendering her the first woman (other than the Queen), the first author, and the first aboriginal Canadian to be thus honored.".
• Four Canadian schools have been named in Johnson's honour: elementary schools in West Vancouver, British Columbia; Scarborough, Ontario; Hamilton, Ontario; and Burlington, Ontario; and a high school in Brantford, Ontario.
• Chiefswood, Johnson's childhood home constructed in 1856 in Brantford, has been listed as a National Historic Site because of both her father's and her own historical importance. Preserved as a house museum, it is the oldest Native mansion surviving from pre-Confederation times.
• An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected in front of the Chiefswood house museum by the province to commemorate E. Pauline Johnson's role in the region's heritage.

• On 11 March 2008, City Opera Vancouver announced its commission of Pauline, a chamber opera to star the dramatic mezzo Judith Forst. The composer is Christos Hatzis, with libretto by Margaret Atwood. The work is planned for premiere in early 2011. The first opera to be written about Pauline Johnson, it is set in Vancouver in March 1913, in the last week of her life.

• The Canadian actor Donald Sutherland narrated the following quote from her poem "Autumn's Orchestra", at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Know by the thread of music woven through

This fragile web of cadences I spin,

That I have only caught these songs since you

Voiced them upon your haunting violin.

• In 2010, composer Jeff Enns was commissioned to create a song based on Johnson's poem "At Sunset". His work was sung and recorded by the Canadian Chamber Choir under the artistic direction of Julia Davids.