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Preface
I first “met” Phyllis Munday when Phyl’s daughter, Edith Wickham, deposited her parents’ records in the BC Archives, some fifteen years ago. As I worked to organize, sort, and inventory the photos and albums, what struck me most intensely were the thousands of powerful photographic images – panoramic views of jagged snowcapped peaks and icy glacier valleys, carefully annotated and labelled. This was my introduction to the majestic world of Mount Waddington, and to the Mundays’ pioneering exploration into the heart of the Coast Mountains. Later, I included Phyllis Munday in two separate archival exhibitions that I researched and created, but several more years passed before I had the opportunity to undertake extensive research in preparation for writing this book.
Phyllis Munday left behind an extraordinary legacy. Her physical prowess legitimized her in the largely male world of mountain climbing and inspired generations of women to follow in her footsteps. The time she spent in the forests, on mountaintops, on glaciers, and in alpine meadows, convinced her that our world is precious. Through her gentle teachings about the wonders and beauties of this natural world she touched many. Girl Guides, mountaineers, and the general public all benefitted from her nature lectures. Phyl Munday was an inspiring public speaker especially when she gave “lantern slide” shows featuring her exquisite nature photography. She was more at home in the outdoors setting, where she never lost an opportunity to combine hiking with observations of nature. A spontaneous, hour-long, engrossing examination of a nurse log on the edge of a trail leading to the beach remains a cherished memory for one lucky Girl Guide.
“Taken at my front door,” Grouse Mountain, 1924.
A confident Phyllis Munday poses for the camera
not long before her triumphant ascent of Mount Robson.
Phyl took photos and kept diaries and wrote up some of her adventures. She was also interviewed several times by historians and mountain climbers. These records (combined with those created by her husband, Don, a professional writer and journalist) are rich, intimate, primary source materials that complement the public archival records.
Phyl’s own words, as written in her diaries and other writings and spoken in her oral reminiscences and conversations taped during interviews in the 1970s, provided me with raw material, which I then refashioned within the dialogue and commentary in the book. Many descriptive details about Guide camp adventures, climbing, and family life are Phyl’s own words. All I have done is place them in the present tense and integrate them into the story. Thus the book is a blending of historical facts and Phyl’s own words.
Writing this book has been a great joy because of the process that combined examination of the archival records documenting Phyllis Munday’s life with the opportunity to speak directly with many who knew and loved her.
Phyllis Munday on the moraine of the Franklin Glacier
carrying a 32-kilogram pack, 1927.
Prologue
On Top of the World
Austrian guide Conrad Kain pulled a red handkerchief from his hip pocket, lifted his felt fedora off his head, and wiped his brow. He then looked below to the first of the roped climbers who followed. Of all the clients I have had in the last fifteen years, I’ll remember this one, he thought. She is stronger than most men, and has a head on her shoulders. Didn’t once panic when that American woman almost got us all killed. I owe her for that one; it could have been a disaster. I’m glad this honour is all her own.
He then began to loop the hemp rope dangling from his waist, to gather the slack as his climbing companion – linked by this rope – moved up to join him. Phyllis Munday negotiated the last few steep and brittle steps over the crumbling ice and stepped up beside him. It was 4:30 p.m. on 29 July 1924.
Kain held out his arms and clasped her hand in his own. He pumped an excited handshake. “There, Lady! Here is the top of Mount Robson! You are the first woman on this peak – the highest of the Rocky Mountains.”
Phyl’s exhaustion disappeared and her face was transformed by a huge smile as she responded to the man’s enthusiastic gesture.
“Now Conrad, stop before my arm falls off!” She reached up and removed her snow glasses from her face. The thirteen-hour climb from high-camp vanished from her thoughts. Here she stood on this narrowest ridge of broken ice covered with snow. She was 3954 metres above sea level. Here, nothing around her was higher – only air.
She took a deep breath of ice-chilled air. Soon it would be time to let the others have their time on the summit. But for now, it was all her own. She quickly thrust thoughts of the arduous ascent to the back of her mind. It had been harrowing and full of challenges, but there would be plenty of time to go over all those events later. This moment – now – here on the summit was for her alone.
The summit of Mount Robson was a great wind-driven snow cornice – capping the highest exposed rock on the mountain but projecting out and over it, without support. The narrow summit ridge was broken ice covered with snow. It was brittle and very steep, suitable for only one person at a time. Footsteps broke away bits of snow and ice and made each movement risky on this fragile surface. An avalanche here would shoot them all to certain death down one thousand metres, then over an enormous cliff of ice to the lower glacier.
Soon she would have to move back to allow her two other rope companions their turn. Her husband Don, with the second rope party, huddled some fifteen metres below her in the shelter of another great cornice. These four climbers also patiently awaited their turn on the top.
Phyl thought of Don and knew he would be wondering if she had yet made the top. She then focussed her vision beyond his resting spot and down even farther, studying the scene far below her. Her eyes travelled swiftly over the icy slopes that were dwarfed and somehow less daunting from this perspective.
Phyl looked down both sides of the mountain. To the north she could see Berg Lake almost three kilometres straight down, and over to the south in Robson Pass she could see the main-camp tents, which appeared to be mere specks. The comfort of “home” was a long way off. She lifted her gaze upwards, across the horizon, where range upon range of white, shimmering mountains spread out beneath her, beckoning, tempting. In any direction, for thousands and thousands of square kilometres, an unlimited vista of mountains, glaciers, snowfields, lakes, and waterways met her gaze.
Phyl savoured the moment – after all, it had been four years in the coming, four years of ambition and aspiration. She thought of all those climbs back home, the mountaineering adventures and challenges that had toned her body and prepared her mind for this ascent. She was the first woman up and a member of the third-ever party to make this climb. On the summit of Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains, she stood five hundred metres above the highest point of any other mountain in the range. What a triumph! At this moment she was on top of the world, queen of all she surveyed. Unexpectedly, tears of emotion welled up.
No, she thought, there’s
