Girls on Top - Female Alpine Pioneers: Canadian Geographic Magazine

For these exceptional females, the backcountry offered freedom from city life, its social constraints and Victorian values. Often educated and affluent, these women met their male counterparts as equals in the Canadian wilderness, which nurtured their independence and provided a setting for creative inspiration and renewal.

"Ennui has no place in the vocabulary of the woman who climbs," wrote one Mary Crawford in the Canadian Alpine Journal in 1909. "The words which rout it are enthusiasm and exhilaration." Because of the passion they felt for mountain culture and its power to release them from ordinary existence, these adventurous women committed wholeheartedly to the alpine experience. Their devotion can be found in historic texts and photographs but also, rightfully and more immediately, in the Canadian peaks that bear their names.

A scientist and artist, Mary Vaux was also a pioneer in glacial studies who explored the backcountry of Alberta and British Columbia between the late 1880s and the 1920s, scaling mountains with her camera and paintbox at hand. When she summited Mount Stephen in 1900 at the age of 40, Mary also became the first woman to make a major ascent of a peak in Canada over 3,050 metres. She was devoted to alpine environments, where she captured numerous photographs of glaciers and mountains and painted more than 1,000 wildflower watercolours, which were later published in a five-volume collection by the Smithsonian Institution.

You might call Georgia Engelhard's initial 1926 climb near Mount Rainier, Washington, love at first height. A native New Yorker, Georgia had always enjoyed the outdoors and, once she overcame a childhood fear of heights, the new sport quickly became an obsession. In 1931 alone, she summited 38 peaks in the Selkirk and Rocky mountains. Georgia's passion for pioneering new routes resulted in 32 first ascents in Canada over the course of her life, some with her husband, American climber Eaton "Tony" Cromwell, whom she met in 1935 and married in 1947.

An American schoolteacher with a desire to explore the Canadian frontier, Mary Jobe first came to the Selkirk Mountains in 1905. A stint on the Dominion Topographical Survey crew near Mount Sir Sandford in 1909 also fed the 31-year-old's passion for outdoor adventure. Mary visited the Canadian mountains on a regular basis and was an eager participant in the Alpine Club of Canada summer climbing camps. A teacher at heart, who firmly believed in the important lessons in nature, she founded Camp Mystic in Connecticut in 1916, a summer camp that introduced young girls to the beauty and adventure of the great outdoors.

A native of Nova Scotia, Anne MacLean arrived in the Mount Robson area in 1930 to visit her sister Sophia and brother-in-law Roy Hargreaves. A year later, she married Chuck Chesser, and both couples embarked on an exciting venture as tour guides and outfitters. Alice Wright was a family friend and frequent visitor to their ranch. Among the climbing community, Alice was affectionately known as "the mother confessor of Mount Robson." In 1939, when Anne, 29, and Alice, 35, summited a peak and found no evidence of earlier climbers, they built a cairn, claimed first ascent and called their mountain Mount Anne-Alice.

In 1970, Selina Appleby was still mourning the sudden death of her husband five years earlier. Looking for ways to rebuild her life, she packed up her three children — ages 7, 10 and 12 — from their downtown Toronto home and travelled by train across Canada to the Purcell Mountains. When they arrived in Bugaboo Glacier Provincial Park, they hired a guide and ascended to Boulder Camp. "He told us that if we scaled the peak 'up there,'" Selina explains, "it would be named after us." Roped together, the family made it to the top of the peak, thereafter known as Applebee Dome. Thirty-one years later, Selina returned to the Bugaboos to celebrate her 70th birthday with her children and grandchildren.

Mount Mollison (2,952 metres)
Border of Kootenay and Yoho national parks, British Columbia

In the late 1800s, the CPR mountain hotels were taken by storm with the arrival of the four Mollison sisters. The sisters held various positions as housekeepers and managers at Glacier House, Mount Stephen House at Field, Fraser Canyon House at North Bend, and the chalet at Lake Louise. In 1898, Mount Mollison was named for their years of support for the climbing community and, in part, for sister Annie's forthright frontier spirit, which prompted her to send a letter to CPR management suggesting the company hire more alpine guides to improve the climbing experience at Glacier House.

In 1904, Elizabeth Parker left Winnipeg with her three children to spend 18 months in the mountains near Banff. Seduced by the restorative powers of fresh mountain air and healing hot pools, Elizabeth believed that Canadians needed a climbing organization they could call their own. At 50, she played a crucial role in the establishment of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC), organizing the first meeting in 1906. She was elected secretary, and her daughter Jean served as the librarian. Elizabeth attended the ACC's yearly summer mountaineering camps until 1913, and throughout her life, she wrote articles for newspapers and magazines that inspired readers to visit the Canadian mountains and appreciate their wonders.

Mary Schaffer was a woman ahead of her time. Afraid of heights but fearless of the Canadian wild, Mary loved to venture into uncharted terrain, travelling by pack horse as she pioneered paths through dense forest and First Nations territories near today's Banff and Jasper national parks. In 1908, Mary was among the first non-aboriginals to explore the area surrounding Maligne Lake in western Alberta, where she befriended Stoney Indians, who called her Yahe-Weha ("mountain woman"). An artist, photographer and writer, Mary documented her many expeditions in detail for newspapers, magazines and scientific and mountaineering journals.

Following the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Lady Susan Agnes Macdonald joined her husband, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, for a transcontinental railway trip in 1886. Dazzled by the beauty of the Canadian Rockies, the 50-year-old decided, to the train crew's consternation, to enjoy a portion of her journey wrapped in CPR blankets and perched atop a candle box on the locomotive's cowcatcher. In contrast to the stricken crew, who no doubt feared the train would run over the young country's first First Lady, Susan showed plucky Canadian character when she famously said: "This is lovely, quite lovely. I shall travel on this cowcatcher from summit to sea!"

Mount Tuzo (3,246 metres)
Border of Kootenay National Park
British Columbia, and Banff National Park, Alberta

The first Canadian-born female mountaineer, Henrietta Tuzo was a founding member of The Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) in 1906. Her short climbing career, from 1901 to 1907, included the first ascent of Peak Seven of the Valley of the Ten Peaks, near Moraine Lake. It was subsequently renamed in her honour. With her guide, Christian Kaufmann, Henrietta completed the climb and returned to their camp in the Yoho Valley in 21 ½ hours, surviving a rock avalanche on the way. Henrietta, 34, stopped climbing in 1907, after she settled in Ottawa, but remained active in the local ACC.

Photos of Mary Vaux (v653/ng4-596), Georgia Engelhard (v554/899pa) and Mary Jobe (na66-1928) courtesy Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies.
Photo of Alice Wright and Ann Chesser courtesy Ishbel Cochrane.
Photos of Selina Appleby (v190/ii. A. Ii-16), Elizabeth Parker (na66-2131), Mary Schaffer (v653-ng4-908), Jean Mollison (na66-1982) and Mount Tuzo (v263/na71-467) courtesy Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies.

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