Celebrated West Coast painter Emily Carr was also an accomplished writer, winning a Governor General’s Award in 1941 for her first book, Klee Wyck. In Emily Carr Country ($60 cloth 0-7710-5889-6, 208 pp., McClelland & Stewart), Saskatchewan photographer Courtney Milne sets himself the formidable task of matching his favourite Carr passages with his own vibrant photographs culled from two decades of exploring the B.C. forests, which Carr called “God’s tabernacle.” His photographs of forest and seashore, and the mini-essays that punctuate each chapter, are suffused with a spiritual sensibility that echoes Carr’s own aesthetic and spiritual vision. The painter’s words, full of wide-eyed awe at the splendour of nature, are by no means a secondary pleasure.

Milne’s otherworldly focus, and the whimsical photograph titles – “Spell of the Moon,” “Tremendous World” – occasionally intrude, pre-empting a personal interpretation of some of the work. The overall success of the book partially depends on one’s taste for Milne’s style of nature photography, which often draws on techniques like multiple exposures and deliberate camera movement to emphasize the impressionistic play of light and colour on organic form.