Born in England and educated there in private schools and at the Manchester College of Music, McIntyre worked as a professional musician and teacher of piano and violin, then spent three years in the Canadian Women's Army Corps. Her urge to 'get away from it all' led her and a female companion named Jerry to build a remote log house on the West Coast waterfront. She describes their homesteading in Place of Quiet Waters: Adventure in a B.C. Paradise (Longman's, 1965).

[BCBW 2003] "Outdoors"