Extraordinary Women Explorers

Christine Linge MacDonald, a past director of the Toronto & District
Parent Co-operative Preschool Corporation, is an elementary-school
teacher in Whitby, Ontario,

This addition to the Woman’s Hall of Fame Series profiles 12
adventurous women throughout history, from 1805 to 1996. In her
introduction, Rooney discusses the many different reasons that women
have braved the rigours of exploration. For Alexandra David-Neel, who
went to Tibet in 1918, it was the desire to “try myself physically and
intellectually.” Dervla Murphy, who bicycled from Europe to India,
sought “the sense of exhilaration and energy and peace.” Everest
climber Sharon Wood sought inner knowledge, while Amanda Smith was an
escaped slave who travelled to preach the Bible. Matty McNair, “the
most experience Polar guide in the world,” was mindful of ecological
concerns.

In addition to being explorers, the women in this book had many
interests and areas of expertise, such as geography, cartography,
history, anthropology, and botany, among others. For example, global
wanderers Edith Watson and Victoria Hayward were, respectively, a
photographer and a writer. Shoshone Indian Sacagawea was a guide on the
Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Rooney’s accounts are straightforward narratives, very factual and
event-driven. Even the most austere living conditions and
life-threatening situations are described with emotional distance.
Nonetheless, her great admiration for these women is clearly expressed,
and her enthusiasm for their bravery, strength, and self-determination
will inspire similar sentiments in most readers. Recommended.