C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

Notes to Page57-17 241in the out-of-doors, even though such experience may havebeen gained no further afteld than the Adirondacks or thewoods of Maine and it has been accomplished winter andsummer by hundreds of travellers since the country was ftrstopened up by white men. Many white women have made thejourney and more than one sick person has been carriedacross the mountains to where, in earlier days, the nearestsuccour could be obtained. The trails followed may almostbe called commercial highways, for they have been used bytraders, prospectors and explorers for a century past. Withthe establishment of steamboat transportation on theYukon and Mackenzie Rivers and the decline of the goldminingindustry with its constant drift of prospectors toand fro, the trail has ceased to be an essential commerciallink and the amount of travel passing over it today is but afraction of that of former years. Nevertheless, there is stillsufficient movement back and forth of natives and occasionalwhite men to keep the memory of the trail alive andno difficulty will be found in obtaining Indians perfectlycompetent to conduct a party across the divide on anyroute. Indeed, the landmarks and trail signs are such thatany experienced traveller could dispense with guides,though such a course is not recommended. And as not theleast important function of so-called guides is that of doingall the manual work of the trip, the paddling, tracking,camp-making, etc., in such capacity alone their services aredesirable and they are worthy of their hire. (Warner, "Fromthe Mackenzie" I, 2)CHAPTER 3: SOUTHAMPTON TO EDMONTON(15-27 MAY)Vyvyan's fteld notes commence with the entry starting thischapter, slightly edited for publication. The chapter emphasizesthe women's strong characters more than the fteld notesdo at this point: Dorrien Smith's indignation at the shipboardmedical inspection and Gordon Mactavish's tale of missing thewomen at the Winnipeg train station because their apparentcertainty belied the possibility that they could be strangers tothe city do not appear in the fteld notes, nor do the field notesemphasize the women's public notoriety to the same extent asthe book."without forDl and void"This is a quotation of Genesis 1:2.CHAPTER 4: OUTFITTING IN EDMONTON(27 MAY-1 JUNE)The reference to the prospect of eating goose during the canoetrip has no corresponding entry in the field notes and seemsdeSigned only to foreshadow the dinner described in Chpt 15.Generally, this chapter follows the field notes' depiction ofEdmonton-rather unimpressive in comparison to Winnipeg,where the women had enjoyed a gUided whirlwind tour whilethe transcontinental train paused for twenty-four hours. Thiscontrast might be accounted for by the women's knowing noone in Edmonton, in their having to spend time shopping forsupplies and attending to the logistics of a northern itinerary(activities that evidently appealed to neither woman), andsimply corning to another prairie city still without beginning tohead north-after all, they had no "wilderness" experience toshow for their eighteen days (14-31 May) of travel. Included inAmerican Fullerton Waldo's six articles and one book about histravels north and down the Mackenzie in 1922 is a verydifferent view of Edmonton, one that includes, if fulsomely, ahigh regard rather than rebuke for its citizens' optimism (Down1 -22).EdDlontonBy 1926, Edmonton had been known for three decades as theGateway to the North, thanks largely to those who travelled tothe Klondike by way of the city during the gold rush in the lastyears of the nineteenth century. According to the DominionCensus of 1926, the city's population was 65,163 that year,having shot up from only a fifth of that just two decades earlier.It was a burgeoning regional centre for agriculture, but alsohad served the entire near North and western Arctic from asearly as the last decade of the eighteenth century. Then, theHBC, as part of its foray into the Eldorado of the Athabascadistrict, established posts on the North Saskatchewan River inthe vicinity of the present-day location of the city. The moresouthern post was to provide reliable supplies of pemmican(made from pounded, dried buffalo meat, unobtainable inlarge quantities farther north) to permit brigades of voyageursto complete long-distance return trips by canoe to Hudson Bay