Читать книгу Canadian Adventurers and Explorers Bundle - John Wilson - Страница 11

Phyl and Don, accompanied many times by Edith, spent the decades of the 1920s and 1930s in Phyl’s words, “rambling high on the ridges.” They were bounded by the routines of family, employment, and domestic responsibilities yet managed to set and keep as a priority this need they both shared to be in the mountains.

“My love for the mountains is terribly deep,” Phyl wrote in her diary. “They mean so much. It is impossible to explain what they do to your soul. There is nothing on earth like them.” On many weekends, and for longer opportunities in the spring and summer, the Mundays climbed in the lower mainland or the Tantalus and Britannia Ranges on the coast north of Vancouver, the Cheam Range south of the Fraser Valley, the Cariboo Mountains, and the Rockies. Before their marriage, Phyl at times had incurred the displeasure of her employer when she arrived late for work on Monday, or alternately, did not make it in until the next day. It was impossible to be sure about how long it might take for a weekend hike. Weather could change, transportation might cause delay, injury or accident was always possible. Phyl managed to convince her boss at Begg Motors that she really wasn’t dallying with the time clock.

Phyl and three-year-old Edith outside Alpine Lodge, their home

on the Grouse Mountain plateau. Phyl packs chairs for the cabin

and ferns for the table setting, 1924.

“The only boat we could get to rent was a yacht with a very deep keel. We went in on a high tide at Bishops Beach way up Indian Arm and of course, we didn’t allow for the tide and we got stuck and couldn’t get away again until the next high tide. That didn’t get us back until the next morning, you see, the morning after we should have been back. So, I’m sorry, but that is why I missed a whole day’s work.”

Her boss had remained unconvinced. In his eyes, Phyl, nicely turned out in a smart suit for her office job, did not appear as he imagined a passionate mountain climber should look, especially one who claimed to have been marooned by the tides. He really believed she was making up the story.

“I’ll bring you evidence to prove that I was mountain climbing,” she had promised, hoping she would not be fired. “I’ll show you the pictures. I can take the film in today at lunch and it should be ready later this week. Just please, let me stay here working until then, and then you will see. I don’t mean to miss work, but sometimes the unexpected occurs.”

The pictures backed up her story, and Phyl’s boss had finally believed that she really had intended to get back on time, and had not just fabricated a wild story to get an extra day off.

Don earned a living as a freelance journalist and a writer. He had no boss to face on Monday morning, although manuscript deadlines and publication dates kept him on track.

Phyl put her skills and experience on hold for several years and stayed at home to care for Edith. Yet Phyl’s “at-home” life was not exactly traditional in routine. Taking advantage of what she called “the extra time” she now had as an at-home wife and mother, Phyl continued with BCMC activities, especially the social ones, and organized many club dances and parties. She undertook more and more responsibilities in Guiding and, as always, partnered with Don on outdoor ventures, in their leisure time “exploring and climbing in unknown mountainous parts of B.C., mapping, studying, and collecting specimens of insects and flora for the Provincial Museum in Victoria, as well as photographing and studying the snow and ice of the big glaciers.”

Women climbers in Phyl’s day were accepted only if they kept up with the men and disguised from others the fact that they hiked. Phyl always thought it unfortunate that so many women were discouraged from pursuing climbing because they were not as strong as the men, and she advised women: “Don’t go too fast at first. Just go steadily to begin with and do the breathing, in and out as regularly as you can, with the movement of your body. Have the right attitude and just hang on with it.”

There had been some changes in women’s clothing since Phyllis first began to hike and could wear hiking garb only on the mountain slopes, never below. Knickerbockers were a wonderful improvement over the bloomers that had been easy to hide under skirts but so voluminous they caught up on the bushes. Knickerbockers were tapered like a man’s pant, but only came to the knee. Women could wear knee socks or tights underneath, although “puttees,” a kind of khaki cloth wound round the legs below the knickers almost like a bandage from the knee to the boot, were most popular. Puttees were actually good for snow because they kept the snow from getting in your boots and were thus a precursor to gaiters. Britches – as Phyl called the first trousers worn by women – were held up by a pair of suspender straps. Eventually in the 1930s and 1940s women began to wear more tapered ski pants with an under-foot strap that held the pants tight to the body and prevented snow from getting under the legs of the pants.

The fabrics used in those early days were made from natural fibres, not synthetic. The first tents Phyl and her Girl Guides used were a heavy canvas that was firm and stiff and very water repellent. The canvas was perfect for a fixed camp location but not at all suitable for packing and taking on the trail. For backpacking in to the bush and on climbing expeditions, Phyl sewed their tents of sail-silk or Egyptian cotton, a light, tightly woven cloth that had proven to be durable in wind and rain. Don designed the tents and made templates for all the pieces. Then they shifted the furniture out of their living room, laid out the fabric on the floor, and cut it all out. Phyl sewed the pieces together using her trusty treadle, a sewing machine operated by foot power. The treadle mechanism connected to the arm of the needle, and as Phyl worked the treadle with her feet, the needle arm pumped up and down, lifting the needle in and out of the fabric, which Phyl guided with her hands.

When the tent was completed, snaps and all, it weighed about two kilograms and was big enough for the three of them. A little V-shaped antechamber held their packs and boots. The guy-ropes were very strong and matched perfectly to the weight of the fabric. The tent fabric was water resistant as long as nothing touched the sides during a rainstorm. Over the years, waxes renewed the surface.

Phyl also sewed climbing clothes because store-bought clothing did not last in the bush, nor did it keep the flies from biting and the rain from soaking their bodies. She often made climbing trousers out of old wool blankets, for the natural oils in the blanket made the trousers rainproof, almost waterproof, windproof, and warm. Yet the wool breathed, so the wearer never really got heated in these home-made pants. Phyl generally sewed hers as knickers and then wound puttees around her legs. She always wore a wool shirt and carried extra sweaters. She never put the sweater on until they stopped, because this was when the sweat on her skin would cool and give her shivers. For instance when she stopped for lunch, Phyl would put a sweater on and then if needed, she would also add what they called a “bone-dry.” The bone-dry coat was the same canvas-type coat as that worn by loggers, except an extra piece of canvas was sewn over the shoulders and down the back to help with perspiration beneath the climber’s pack and as an extra padding against the wooden pack frame. The bone-dry coat also had pockets for carrying a compass, a notebook, pocket knife, and snack foods that would be awkward to get to in the clothing layer beneath. The bone-dry trousers generally did not have pockets, but they were essential when pushing through wet bush as they were almost completely waterproof.

When Don and Phyl began climbing the mountains around Vancouver, people packed their supplies by wrapping everything up in a wool blanket and then fastening and knotting it up with rope or belt. They looped the rope or belt to make a shoulder strap and slung the load over a shoulder. Soon packboards were invented and hikers could have their hands free because their load was fixed to a wooden frame fitted with shoulder straps, which balanced the load between the shoulder blades. Don did not like the Trapper Nelson style packboards then in vogue. He thought the wooden side pieces were far too long for hiking in dense underbrush as they easily caught on vines, salal, or fallen logs. He fashioned his own packboards, tailor-made them for himself, Phyl, and eventually Edith. The two wooden bars down the side of the frame were shorter than conventional ones. The other advantage to Don’s design was that the canvas packs were completely self-contained and could also be used without the packboards, unlike the Trapper Nelson design that integrated the pack onto the board.

In 1923 alone, the Mundays managed to squeeze an amazing number of trips into a single season. Beginning in February, Phyl was the only woman amongst thirteen club members to participate in a snowshoe trip to Mount Strachan (elevation 1455 metres). They stayed overnight at the club cabin on Grouse, where, no doubt, they thawed the gramophone by placing it inside the wood-fired cast-iron oven before playing dance music until the wee hours. As Edith was now two years old, Phyl could leave child-minding to Don or her mother on an occasional weekend.

The following month Don led a group of twenty BCMC members to Goat Mountain and returned via the Lynn Valley. In April, Phyl, Don, and club members went to Cathedral Mountain near Seymour Lake. In May, Don again led a group, this time on a one-day trip up Dam Mountain. In August the BCMC annual camp was at Avalanche Pass, southeast of Alta Lake (now known as Whistler). At the time there was no Sea-to Sky Highway, and travel to the area required some planning and co-ordination. The climbers took the Union Steamship from Vancouver up Howe Sound to the dock at Squamish, and then caught the train. The Pacific Great Eastern Railway line, built in 1914, left from Squamish and stopped at Alta Lake, thus reducing the time for overland travel. Once off the train, the climbers rented pack horses to carry their supplies and food the remainder of the way into camp. The two-week camp allowed the Mundays (accompanied by Edith, aged two years), to make several excursions in the vicinity as they explored their favourite Garibaldi Park. They made first ascents of Mount Blackcomb (elevation 2440 metres) on the western end of the Spearman Range and Overlord Mountain (2625 metres) in the Fitzsimmons Range.

Later in the month, after the camp was over, Phyl and Don, again accompanied by Edith, travelled by train to the small town of Hope, which lies at the foot of the Coast Mountains, up the Fraser Valley from Vancouver. From Hope they went by automobile to Laidlaw, where they had arranged to hire pack and saddle horses for the ride through the timber into the Cheam Range of mountains near Jones Lake (now known as Wahleach Lake). There, at the north end of the lake, was a small B.C. Electric Railway cabin beside the hydroelectric dam. Mr. Barr, the operator, gave the Mundays a royal welcome and it was from here that they set up their base camp. They reconnoitred the “Lucky Four” group, so named for the Lucky Four Mine by Arthur Williamson, the mine superintendent. Three of these peaks bore the names of the principals of Foley, Welch and Stewart, a railway construction company that at one time was the largest in North America. This company built the Fraser Canyon section of the Canadian Northern Railway and many other rail lines.

The fourth peak, also named by the mine superintendent, received its name only after the Munday visit to the area. He named it Baby Munday Peak in honour of Ediths mountaineering experience. Another mountain nearby he named Lady Peak in Phyl’s honour. The Geographic Board of Canada adopted Baby Munday Peak as an official name in 1946. On this 1923 trip the Mundays explored the area with an eye to a return trip and during a thirteen-hour climb, made a first ascent of Mount Stewart, reputed to be the most difficult mountain in the range. On the club trip the following July they returned to the area for a successful ascent of Mount Foley.

Phyl and Don had extraordinary and finely tuned abilities to navigate in the bush and to climb in areas where few ventured to go. Their reputation gave Mr. Williamson, the mining superintendent, an idea. He invited the Mundays to put their mountaineering skills into use for the mining industry, and told them of his hopes to relocate the first producing silver mine in the province, the Eureka-Victoria mine, which had not operated for almost half a century. Although its specific location had been lost, the mine site was generally believed to be high on a mountain some thirteen kilometres from Hope. In July, right after their climb in the Cheam area, the Mundays headed to Hope and to this search.

Phyl took photos as Don swung precariously on a rope over a cliff edge outside the entrance to an overgrown mine tunnel. The rocks of the cliff edge showed that the tunnel had been cut right into an open vein of ore. As Don dangled, he used his ice axe to break off samples of rock around the entrance, which he then brought down the mountain with them. The samples that Don collected were assayed and discovered to be a silver-gold ore. The miners acted quickly and within a week or so commenced mining operations. The revival of the mine signalled an economic boon for Hope and the vicinity, and the story of its discovery added to the popular lore about the Mundays.

Climbing with a young daughter took a certain fortitude and patience, although Edith was never much trouble. She had accompanied her parents from an early age, and being on climbs was just a natural part of her life. The rhythm of the climb, of Don’s stride and arm swings as he carried her, lulled her and kept her content for several hours at a time. She would hum with the rhythm of his walking. For her mother, this humming was a soothing and sweet sound of absolute contentment, and Phyl never tired of hearing it. Edith knew and accepted the routine of the outdoors. As she grew, Don adapted his method of transporting her. The sling over his shoulder that held her as an infant had soon developed into the specialized backpack, then a larger one, and finally, once she was walking, Edith began to climb on her own. A little at a time in areas free of dense underbrush and on wide trails, Edith and her parents worked on finding the right combination of carrying and putting down. Eventually Edith had her own pair of hiking boots with tricouni nails and also snowshoes for winter walking.

On many of the climbs, going in to Garibaldi, the Selkirks, and the Rockies, the Mundays, like other climbers, used pack horses to carry their provisions. Edith loved horses and as a toddler pretended she had her own. Phyl told an interviewer who asked about hiking with Edith: “She always has an imaginary pack train, she will talk to these horses and pick up a stone every now and again, and throw it ahead of her and call out her horse’s name, and tell him to get going.” It was this contentment that charmed many in the Munday circle and created a legendary quality to the remembrances of Edith on the trail and at camp.

Phyl and Don began branching out. They were now members of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) and through this organization broadened their web of social contacts with other climbers. Unlike the locally based BCMC, the ACC membership reflected a geographically disparate group whose common interest in mountain climbing brought them physically together each year at club camps held in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Before long the Mundays were not only attending the annual camps but had attained their Climbing Badges for special types of climbs. Phyl later went on to earn the Silver Rope Award, signifying her as a qualified leader on climbs chiefly in snow and ice. Later, with Don, she also edited the Alpine Journal for several years and acted on the executive.

Somehow she and Don managed to balance activities with both organizations until 1930 when they broke with the BCMC, because they found it impossible to contribute fairly in two clubs at once. They were never just joiners, but busy and active club participants. For the Mundays, the ACC held the most promise for serious and committed climbers who wished to explore beyond the immediate vicinity of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver area.

Phyl was always conscious of pulling her own weight. As she was often the only woman on the more daring climbs or the more isolated ones, it was important to her that she not be a burden to anyone. She knew that for many men, the mention of a woman climbing with them would be met with grumbling and resentment. Just before the famous Mount Robson climb in 1924, Phyl saw, to her horror, one of the male climbers open the pack of a female companion and take some of the supplies out and place them in his own pack. This deliberate and surreptitious act conveyed to Phyl so clearly the attitude of many male climbers who had little confidence in the ability of their female companions to carry a fair load. Perhaps the man thought he was being kind by lightening the load of another and thus assuming a greater load for himself, but to Phyl this was unacceptable. She carefully guarded her own pack and continued her resolve to prove her abilities. Consequently she outdid herself over and over, and much to the amazement of the men, often carried (without grumbling) a pack much heavier than their own. Phyl was “a strong woman, as strong as any man,” asserted renowned Rocky Mountain guide Edward Feuz Junior.

At Alpine Lodge – home to the Mundays for three years – Phyl served lunches and drinks to weary hikers,

and in the winter, Don rented toboggans. Don and Edith pose with Phyl’s sister Betty,

her mother Beatrice; and (possibly) her brother Richard, ca 1925.