Barbara was born on a tugboat sailing to Esperanza, a tiny missionary camp on the remote Northwest coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Her parents were living up the inlet in Zeballos,where her father was logging. Esperanza is located off Hecate Channel in an area known as the Graveyard of the Pacific because so many ships have been lost in it's turbulent waters. Esperanza is accessible only by boat or sea plane.

"There were a group of baptist missionaries called the shantymen who traveled up and down the West Coast trying to convert the Indians and loggers. Dr. MacLean was the leader and he situated the hospital in a remote but strategic spot. The landing was divided by a stream, flanked on one side by the Baptist camp and hospital and on the other side by a hotel with a beer parlor where the loggers would come to drink and pass out. One day the hotel burned down. My mom said everybody knew Reverend MacLean had set the fire."