The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies is celebrating the role of adventuresome women with it newest exhibition.
Women Adventurers in the Rockies features 10 women who through finding their own paths and following their passion swept aside barriers, outdated notions and archaic institutions while at the same time proving women are indeed adventuresome.
Among the 10 are those who accomplished firsts, such as Nancy Hansen, the first woman to climb all 54 of the peaks over 11,000 feet in the Canadian Rockies; Kathy Calvert, the first female warden to serve in the Rocky Mountain National Parks; Diny Harrison, who became North America’s first fully certified female mountain guide; and of course Mary Schäffer, the first white woman to see Maligne Lake.
Joining them are others who pursued intellectual adventures such as Mary Vaux, who along with her family, pioneered glacial studies in the Rocky Mountains; Banff-born Eleanor Luxton, who was worked as a draftsperson for the Canadian Pacific Railway and later as an inspiring Banff teacher, historian and founder of the Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation; and Catharine Robb Whyte, who with her husband, Peter, founded the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies and the Banff Public Library.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Rummel, Fran Drummond and Dorothy Carleton, meanwhile, took on adventurous careers. Rummel, a German baroness, spent many years operating lodges at Mt. Assiniboine and Skoki. While Drummond has operated Twin Falls Chalet in Yoho National Park for nearly 50 years and Carleton is an English war bride turned warden’s wife who with her husband, Ed, and three-month old son moved into a one-room cabin in 1946.
While a few of the stories share some similarities, each are inherently as unique as the individuals represented in the exhibit, such as Carleton who according to Whyte Museum curator and executive director Michale Lang did not think she should be included among the 10 women.
“She said ‘I shouldn’t be part of this I don’t belong here. I’m not an adventurer. I don’t go climbing,’” Lang said. “I think it is pretty adventurous to come from England as a warbride who went directly to the backcountry.”
As part of Carleton’s story, the Whyte is displaying the cookbook, rolling pin and bowl Carleton, 91, used to make her first loaf of bread in the backcountry.
“This is the bowl she used to make her first loaf of bread. It was given to her by a cook at a mining camp near Castle Mountain. And this is the little bath tub she used to bathe her son,” Lang said pointing to two basins.
With stories and objects like that, Women Adventurers in the Rockies is inspirational, encouraging and very refreshing. History is populated with all sorts of men running all over the countryside doing wonderful things, adventuring and exploring. This exhibition presents another tale altogether sharing the role women played in history and communities of the Bow Valley.
By sharing the stories of these remarkable members of the communities within the Rocky Mountains also reminds us of what we can accomplish when we follow our passions rather than the dictates of what is expected of us.
Women Adventurers in the Rockies is on display until Nov. 15.
