Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay (Marilyn Simonds 2022)

The extraordinary, bigger than life story of Louise de Kiriline Lawrence reads like an epic novel and the author of her biography is a perfect match. Marilyn Simonds, one of North America’s most admired writers, was most appropriately a close friend of this legendary naturalist who lived in a cabin in the woods in northern Ontario. After a privileged childhood on an island estate in Sweden, Louise went to work with the Danish Red Cross during World War 1. In a camp hospital in Denmark, she fell in love with and married one of her patients, a Russian officer with the White Army. In 1919, she followed him east into the thick of the Russian Civil War where they were arrested by the Red Army and became separated. After learning of his apparent execution in Siberia, Louise made a daring escape out of Russia. Following her immigration to Canada in 1927, she became a pioneer of health care delivery in northern Ontario and was well known for her role as nurse to the Dionne quintuplets. She retired from nursing in 1935.

 In the second half of her long dazzling life, working out of her log house, Louse embraced the study of wild birds with the professionalism of an ornithologist. A prolific nature writer, she published seven books. Although her best work went almost unrecognized in Canada until late in her life, one of her distinguished prize-winning books, “The Lovely and the Wild,” written in 1968, was highly acclaimed in the United States. The American Ornithologists Union (AOU) was the recipient of hundreds of her scientific papers and review articles, all based on her meticulous field observations and nest records. Louise was the first Canadian woman to be named an Elective Member of this prestigious association of professional bird scientists.

Reviewed by Peter McAllister