Elizabeth Parker And The Alpine Club Of Canada

Mountaineering as a sport and dominating lure emerged with much appeal in the 18-19th centuries. The change in attitudes towards the evocative peaks has been well tracked and traced in such classics as Marjorie Hope Nicolson’s Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite (1959) and The Victorian Mountaineers (1953), by Ronald Clark. Obviously, there was an interest in climbing before the late 18-19 centuries, and the writings of Dante and Petrarch speak much about such an appeal, but the broader cultural shift that began to take place in the 18th century acted as a midwife to the young child of mountaineering that wooed and wed many in the 19th century. Clark and Nicolson tell this tale in an admirable way. Canada was still feeling its national way in the 18-19th centuries. The Rockies were still about to welcome Europeans who had scaled many a peak in Switzerland, Austria and the Dolomites. The USA was keen to start and Alpine club to further the American way and style. 1902 was a pivotal year for Canadian mountaineering in this youthful tale. Charles Fay of the American Alpine Club had a conversation with an important Canadian Alpinist, A.O. Wheeler, and Fay suggested to Wheeler that he form a Canadian chapter to the American Alpine Club. Wheeler seemed eager and quick to take the seductive bait from his American counterpart. But, there was another voice to be heard, and she, gratefully so, would and could not be kept silent. Elizabeth Parker worked for the Winnipeg Free Press, and, given her frail health at times, she spent time a year in Banff in 1904 to take advantage of the sulphur springs. Parker’s time in Banff and the Rockies gave her an appreciation for the Rockies as an important part of the Canadian psyche. So, when Wheeler had the notion that the Canadian rock slabs and white spires (and those who turned to them) should bend to the American way, Parker was quick off the mark to offer him a ‘penlashing’. She pulled no punches and spoke in a direct and forceful way to Wheeler and those like Wheeler who were prepared to go the colonial way. Parker accused Wheeler for his ‘lack of patriotism’ and she made it clear that such a lack of a healthy nationalist spirit ‘knocks me speechless and fills me with shame’ (The Alpine Club of Canada’s Gazette: 1906-2006: Vol.21, No.1, Winter 2006: pgs. 8-9). It was because of Parker’s initiative that the founding of the Alpine Club was held in Winnipeg (March 27 1906), and it is also significant that the ACC was the first Alpine Club in the world to include women in their leadership at an executive level. ‘At a time when no other alpine club in the world welcomed members, when the Alpine Club of Canada formed in 1906 it not only welcomed women as full members, co-founder Parker was elected as its first Secretary’ (Gazette: Vol. 21, No.2, Summer 2006: pgs. 14-15). There is no doubt, therefore, that Elizabeth Parker was an ardent nationalist, a feminist ahead of her time and a woman committed to mountaineering and mountain ecology. It is quite understandable why the Elizabeth Parker hut was named after her. It is also significant that a play has been written about Parker (‘Elizabeth Parker and the Creation of the Alpine Club of Canada’), and the drama was performed by Laurie Schwartz (see ‘Actor recreates mother of Canadian mountaineering’: Gazette: Vol. 21, No. 2, Summer 2006: pgs. 14-15). The fact that Elizabeth Parker thought mountaineering and nationalism together and acted on such a feminist commitment paved the way for others. The blend of nationalism and mountaineering was yet further unpacked and unfolded in a graphic and never to be forgotten short story by Robin Mathews. Climber (Queens Quarterly: 1964), by Mathews, is one of the first short stories in Canada that pits the appeal of the Canadian Coastal Mountains (Garibaldi area) and the Canadian way against the aggressive American way. The tale told is about 2 men who take to the Garibaldi area. The actual hike took place in 1956, and the writing and publication of the short story a few years later. Climber is a must read for those interested in Canadian nationalism, mountaineering, American imperialism and Mathews’ earlier nationalist phase. Climber is about a Canadian and an American heading into the Garibaldi area, and it uses the climb as a metaphor to probe the soul of different nations. The reader does not need to hike too far along the path of Climber to realize the political trail that Mathews is trekking and why. Canadian nationalism and mountaineering wed in this short story in a way that pits the Canadian vision over and against the American way. The nationalist tone of Climber means it has a challenging political bent to it that other Canadian mountaineering poems such as Birney’s David and Gustafson’s Rocky Mountain Poems does not. Elizabeth Parker was a nationalist and committed to the mountains. Politics and ecology were never far from her fertile mind and imagination. She just assumed a woman had a right to speak the important things, and she did so with much force and vigour. She was, in many ways, in the vanguard of what we call today ‘ecocriticism’. Robin Mathews stands very much in the nationalist and mountaineering way of Elizabeth Parker, and a read of Climber aptly illustrates why this is the case. Purdy’s David and Gustafson’s Rocky Mountain Poems seem quite tame when set beside the nationalist vision of Mathews in Climber. I’m sure Elizabeth Parker would be more than pleased by Climber, and, in many ways, Parker is very much the mother of such nationalists as Mathews. RSD