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

IntroductionXLIXvertently obliged this wish. Generally, although not unaware of history, Vyvyantravelled in order to capture the essence of places and people at the moment ofencounter. If these had a context for her, it was the context of the enduringgrandeur of nature or the unchanging human condition. It is no surprise, then,to fmd that she published a dated book.In the decade following her return from the Arctic, Vyvyan wrote those sixarticles about her trip, including one in the GeographicalJournal of the RGS(eighty-four years after Isbister's account of the Rat-the first-appeared in thesame journal). Her autobiography identifies her early arctic journey as a spiritualadventure which set the stage for further travels. Her immediate plansincluded travels in Labrador (Vyvyan to R. Hinks, I3 December I928); however,in I929, her life changed unexpectedly when she met and soon after married SirCourtenay Bouchier Vyvyan. His death in I941 left her to spend much timedeveloping a flourishing market-garden enterprise in order to payoff the estatemortgage on Trelowarren, the Vyvyan family home (J.C.T.). Travelling andwriting proceeded more regularly thereafter.The Ladies, the Gwich'in, and the Rat makes Clara Vyvyan' s Arctic Adventure availableagain. It opens a window on the western Arctic, poised, in 1926, between thedogsled and the airplane. It also marks the reappearance of an important narrativeof recreational travel in the western Arctic, one of the earliest accounts ofwomen grappling with the solitude and scale of the northern landscape. HVyvyansaw that northern journey as a turning point in her life, leading to more conventionaladventures, modern readers may see it as part of a tradition of women'snorthern travel that continues today with narratives such as Beth Johnson's Yukonl-Vild (1984) and Victoria Jason's Kabloona in the YellowK~Qk (I995), a tradition testifyingto the personal rewards of wilderness travel.