Lilies and Fireweed: Frontier Women of British Columbia

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

In the largely male society of frontier British Columbia (10 men to
every woman), life was “hard, dangerous and unforgiving.” Hume looks
at how women came to this wilderness province and at the ways in which
they contributed to its settlement and development.

He concentrates on the pre-1914 era, reaching back as far as the
mid-1800s. It was a culturally diverse society, with women of First
Nations origins mixing with those from Hawaii, China, Japan, Africa, the
United States, and Europe. The text presents these women as wives,
mothers, and daughters, as well as in specialized roles as
entrepreneurs, “hurdy-gurdy damsels,” and “dance hall queens.”

Hume chronicles the women’s arrival (for example, by bride ship) and
their lives of horrific drudgery, hardship, loneliness, and privation.
Their skills and accomplishments are recognized, as is their role in
building communities and contributing to the social life of the new
settlements.

In the text, Hume strives for atmosphere, struggling to let us feel the
texture of raw frontier life. The book is packed with great archival
photos, carefully selected and captioned. British Columbia’s local-
and social-history resources receive a boost with this publication.