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WOMEN'S SPORT HISTORY

Women As Adventurers

by Bruce Kidd
Published in CAAWS Action Bulletin

Almost 90, my aunt Dora is now in a nursing home and losing strength and interest in life. But she usually perks up when I mention cycling.

"I just loved to cycle," she will tell me. "Nothing ever brought me as much pleasure as cycling."

In 1926, Dora and her friend, Frances "Frankie" Routledge, walked to the nearby CCM factory in Weston (just outside of Toronto), bought themselves new bicycles with the money they had earned as secretaries, and set out for Vancouver. While in Ontario, and in some of the big cities they passed through, Dora and Frankie stayed with relatives or friends, or in YWCAs or tourist homes, but the rest of the time they camped, sleeping in their small tent and cooking their food on utensils they carried with them.

Four decades before the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway, their route took them through the United States to Winnipeg and across the Canadian Prairies. Sometimes the gravel was so rough that they had to walk. After a heavy rain, the "gumbo" on the prairies would be so thick that they had to stop and wait until the road dried. In fact, despite the fact that they had single speed bicycles, they enjoyed the mountains the most because there the roads were paved. On the other hand, between the towns of Golden Revelstoke, there were no roads at all, so they resorted to the train. Layovers and all, the entire trip took two months.

Dora's feat has always inspired me (sometime, with an 18-speed touring bike, a sag wagon, and hot tubs, I would like to do it myself!). But whenever I talked to her about their accomplishment, Dora's attitude was always "no big deal". Other women of her (post-suffrage) generation went on similar adventures, she would tell me, and then go on to expound upon the delights of that and other trips.

While historians have concentrated on the early activities of women in sport, no doubt because the evidence is greater, I am convinced that Dora is right about the extent of women's participation in other forms of non-urban outdoor pursuits. Certainly women did not stop cycling after "the cycling craze" of the 1890s, although the media eventually lost interest in the novelty of their participation. In the 1920s, sports were even more heavily labelled with the ideologies of masculinity than they are today. While women competed in every sport that was played, other women who had the opportunity and the means must have found non-competitive activities like cycling an attractive alternative. Perhaps the moral authorities who decried the female ambition in sports were less resistant to their participation in other forms of physical activity.

In the early decades of the century, women travelled great distances on foot (and on skis and snowshoes as well) and horseback, and by canoe, kayak, and sailboat, for challenge and recreation. They swam large bodies of water, and climbed some of the highest mountains. In western Canada, as Parks Canada warden Cyndi Smith has documented in her fine book, Off The Beaten Track, the explorations of women like Mary Schaffer and Mary Vaux (pronounced Vox) helped open up what are now the national parks of Banff and Jasper to hiking and wilderness camping. It was only at the nationalist insistence of Winnipeg journalist Elizabeth Parker that the Alpine Club of Canada was formed in 1906 — the leading male mountaineers were prepared to become a Canadian branch of an American organization. By the First World War, half the members were women. Of 638 "first ascents" recorded in the national parks between 1885 and 1950, women participated in the climbing parties of 159 of them and were given individual credit for 59. Englishwoman Katie Gardiner, who didn't begin climbing in Canada until she was 42, made 33 of the individual ascents. In the 1920s, local Alberta and British Columbia women like Agnes Truxler and her sister, Mona Matheson, began to work as licensed trail guides.

These accomplishments outside the narrow bounds of competitive sports need to be recovered and celebrated, to correct and complete our understanding of the pioneering developments in these now popular recreations. Even more, we need to recapture the experiences of the many women like my lifelong hero, Dora. She and Frankie didn't think about firsts or records. But they had a genuine love for the adventure and companionship physical activity can provide. Their trek not only affirms the tremendous human capacity for physical activity. It also reminds us that women's physical recreation has a long herstory, too.

Bruce Kidd’s writing reveals his astonishing range of interests and knowledge of sport. Among his published works are articles dealing with physical activity, athletes' rights, the place of sport in the modern state, physical education for adults, sport and masculinity, and the philosophy of excellence. Almost single-handedly, he has brought attention to illustrious but largely forgotten contributors to Canada's rich sporting history such as the ground-breaking Women's Amateur Athletic Federation. His most recent work, The Struggle for Canadian Sport, won the North American Society for Sport History Book Award in 1997. During the 1960's, Bruce was Canada's best known middle-distance runner, winning the Lou Marsh Trophy for his successes on the track. He was twice chosen Canada's Male Athlete of the Year.