Despite the encouraging reception Rosemary got from editors, initially, it was hard to find enough actual paying photographic work to make ends meet so she supplemented with some retail sales. A brief stint at the Murphy Gamble department store reinforced her conviction that this type of work was not for her although later, a part-time job in a book store proved a little more acceptable. She worked initially as a press photographer but later, as she became better known and opportunities increased she increasingly turned to free lance work, doing photo stories and illustrating articles in a number of magazines like Macleans, Weekend Magazine, the Star Weekly, Canadian Geographic, Nature Canada, Perspectives and others. She worked for the National Film Board, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Wildlife Service and various government agencies, and continued to provide illustrations for books and other publications. Her work brought her into contact with some of Canada's top photographers during this period, many of whom became friends such as Freeman Patterson and Malak Karsh.

Perhaps her favourite publication, with which she had a long and productive relationship was the Hudson Bay Company's house magazine, The Beaver. She hadn't been in Canada a year when she got a phone call from The Beaver publishers offering her an assignment to go to Dawson City. This was the Canada she had come to experience! Rosemary was thrilled to travel to Dawson City on the 'Whitehorse', the last stern wheel freighter and ferry on the Yukon River. In a busy 4 days in Dawson City she photographed everything she saw including the few remaining old prospectors, the deserted gold-rush dance halls and other remnants of its heyday. She was lucky to see it before it was reinvented for the tourist trade and was able to absorb its atmosphere of quiet, poignant decay.