This Wild Spirit: Women in the Rocky Mountains of Canada

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.

The Rockies were Canada’s last frontier, a vast territory of mountain
peaks, dazzling glaciers, snowfields, pristine lakes, and unspoiled
forests. By the late 19th century, Canadians had conquered this
wilderness, opening passes and pushing the railway through to the West
Coast. Women were part of this time of exploration and discovery, of
stretching the boundaries, both socially and geographically. Some
travelled the steep mountain trails by horseback, camping along the way.
Others experienced the mountains from the relative comfort of the early
trains, staying at the new Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) hotels.

During this period when Rocky mountain travel was in its infancy (from
the late 19th to the mid-20th century), women strove to capture their
impressions of a very challenging yet inspiring area. They did this
using many literary and visual forms, including diaries, plays, poetry,
essays, letters, photography, paintings, and beadwork. The result is a
“creative and cultural legacy” unequalled in its richness.

This anthology is a “portable archive,” organized into six
groupings: Metis and Aboriginal women, botanists, explorers,
mountaineers, mountain culture and wilderness, and literary travellers.
The issues of racial difference and women’s rights permeate the
collection. Substantial excerpts from diaries, letters, and other
literary works are supplemented with archival documents, photos, and
samples of CPR advertising posters that used images of women to promote
travel in the Rockies.

The collection lends itself to browsing and sampling, enjoying short
extracts at random as a way of experiencing a little-known piece of
Canada’s social history.