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

IntroductionXLIand A.E. Housman, and her esteem for the writings of Robert Louis Stevensonclarify her inclination toward the perspectives and values of earlier periods of herculture. She usually tried to avoid being treated as a "lady" but cultivated it in herreading, her botanizing, and her dismissiveness about most women not of herclass.And she exploited the treatment of her as a lady when it could benefIt her.Like many other women travellers, Vyvyan had some freedom of movementbecause she was single; and although she lacked the direct institutionalaffiliations that facilitated the travels of male soldiers, traders, missionaries, andexplorers, she did belong to a privileged class. Accordingly, the Commonwealthwideinstitutions of imperial Britain were available to aid her. Among hercontacts was her neighbour, Leonard Daneham Cunliffe. A director of the HBCfrom 1907 to 1931 (he was elected after Sir Sandford Fleming's resignation) anddeputy governor 1914,-16, he could open the way to the North for her. As sheputs it in her second chapter, he "kept up a lively correspondence with his friendsin Canada" (7). On 6 November 1925, he wrote to P.D. Stirling, Londonmanager of the HBC, explaining the women's interest, clarifying that because"money is an object" some information about prices was required, andsuggesting that a trip on the Mackenzie River made an appealing prospect(Cunliffe). Both Angus Brabant, who was fur trade commissioner and had justbecome the director of the newly acquired AATC, and Louis Romanet, generalmanager of that company and manager of the Mackenzie district for the HBC,arrived in London in November, and their discussions with Stirling helped toshape the women's itinerary. Thought was given to their sailing in the HBC ship.Bqychimo, but the company had not decided if the vessel would make a trip alongthe arctic coast east from Herschel Island in 1926 or if it would return toVancouver at the end of the summer; besides, Stirling added in his letter toCunliffe of 21 January 1926, "she is not fItted to carry passengers, especiallyladies" (Cunliffe).Similarly, the shorter of Harry Warner's two memoranda about the journeynoted that "it may be taken for granted that the Mounted Police would not allowany women, or party of women, to cross the divide with less than two guides.Furthermore, on the drift down the Porcupine, it is possible they may insist on alone white woman being accompanied by a man, native guide or otherwise" ("Re"4). In the same summer that Vyvyan and Dorrien Smith travelled the Rat River,authorities had allowed the doomed party of Englishmen consisting of John