Emily Carr was known for her menagerie of animals. She bred dogs, had several cats, a parrot, and a pet rat, but she is perhaps most remember for the Javanese macaque she found at a Victoria pet shop in 1923. This story is captured in the Youth collection book “When Emily Carr Met Woo” by Monica Kulling and illustrated by Dean Griffiths. While tragedy nearly befell Woo in this story, in life he was a muse for Carr for some 15 years.
She named the monkey “Woo” after the sound he made while riding on Carr’s shoulders as she strolled the Victoria harborside, typically pushing an old pram filled with puppies and other pets. This scene is permanently captured in a 2010 sculpture of Carr, Woo, and the dog Billie by Barbara Paterson, sited prominently near the harbor.
Excerpted from the Winter 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin