The first one, My Northern Love, expressed what I was feeling at that time. I had chosen to follow my husband to Pickle Lake where he was working, but I found it difficult living there. My children were off to universities in the big cities, so I was alone for most of the day. My loneliness is expressed in Wildflowers, The Swallows and Migration. The Web is an allegory for my situation. These poems were published in a Thunder Bay newspaper, and then read at a mining women’s conference. I was invited to read them, but we were moving to Stewart, BC, just at that time. I was told afterwards that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Those written in Stewart, BC, are not so sad. They reflect the wildflowers, the trees, the fiord, the mountains, and the wildlife. The natural beauty of that area helped compensate for the isolation.

The last poem, Maryanna of the Wildflowers, was written in Vancouver, BC. My dear friend Maryanna, whom I had shared so much with in Stewart, BC., had died. Obviously this moved me greatly, and inspired this poem. Her younger daughter read it at her funeral.