“Phyl climbed close to one hundred mountains and made over
thirty first ascents, many times being the first woman to reach the summit.”
—Phyllis Munday:
Mountaineer (2002) p.135
When Phyllis Munday (1894-1990) left this fragile earth our
island home, the first generation of BC mountaineering came to a fitting close.
The tale of the life of Phyllis Munday is well told and recounted in Kathryn
Bridge’s well-crafted missive, Phyllis
Munday: Mountaineer (2002). The book is a gentle read and keeper for those
with an interest in BC and Coastal Range mountain history.
Phyllis Munday was the first woman to ascend what was then
thought the highest peak in BC, Mt. Robson, in 1924. She, and her well-known
mountaineering husband, Don Munday, from 1925-1935, did most of the hard
pioneering work on Mount Waddington (the highest mountain in BC). Don wrote a
most evocative book on their many attempts to bag Mt. Waddington, and it was
published in 1948 as The Unknown
Mountain. Sadly so, Don died in 1950.
Phyllis Munday:
Mountaineer is divided into twelve readable chapters that cannot but hold
and warm the reader to the passion of Phyllis’s life: 1) In the Wilds, 2)
Learning by the Book, 3) Passionate About Guiding, 4) People Who Like to Climb
Mountains, 5) Bloomers and Britches, 6) Romance Above the Clouds, 7) Rambling
High on the Ridges, 8) Living in the Mountains, 9) Rising Above All the Others,
10) The Quest for Mystery Mountain, 11) Climbing Season and 12) Climbing on
Alone. The Epilogue,
‘Rewarded Beyond Measure’ and the Chronology of Phyllis
Munday’s life are a fit and fine way to conclude this primer on the most
important woman in the earliest phase of BC mountaineering history.
Phyllis Munday was known for more than her many ascents of
BC’s white-capped peaks. She also played a substantive role in the BC Girl
Guides movement. She was offered their highest award for decades of service,
and in 1972 she was given the Order of Canada for her lifetime of service to
the young, the mountains and an ecological vision.
The sheer strength of Phyllis was legendary. She could often
outpace and carry heavier loads than most men, and she was as nimble as a
mountain goat on the rocks. It is impossible to understand the birth and
development of BC mountaineering without sitting at the feet of Phyllis Munday.
Phyllis Munday:
Mountaineer is a must read for those with a hunger and taste for hiking,
rambling, scrambling and climbing in BC. There are even, for those of us who
live in the Central-Upper Fraser Valley, some exquisite morsels on the time
spent by Phyllis/Don in the Hope-Cheam area in 1923.
Do, if and when time permits, pick up and read Phyllis Munday: Mountaineer. The missive
will whet the appetite for more mountain lore.
rsd