LITMIR.BIZ

      Now in her twenties, Phyl was occupied with her Guiding responsibilities after work a couple of evenings each week, and she had new duties with the Women’s Volunteer Reserve, a service club training women for wartime service. The corps drilled at the police station and practised first aid. As it turned out, no member of the corps ever went overseas, but there was plenty of work for them to do at home, beginning with visiting returning soldiers at the local hospitals and fundraising.

      But Phyl also had a new passion – the B.C. Mountaineering Club (BCMC), a locally based organization that began in 1907 as the Vancouver Mountaineering Club. Elsie Carr was a member as was Phyl’s friend from the Volunteer Reserve, Margaret (Peggy) Worsley As soon as Phyl was twenty-one and old enough to apply for individual membership in the BCMC, she filled out the application form, which was then brought forward in October 1915 to a club executive meeting. Her sponsor and one other member vouched for Phyl’s worthiness and she was admitted as a general member, which gave her access to club events, but not full or active membership. To be considered for active membership required not just an interest in hiking and climbing, but proficiency. The applicant had to climb two mountains (with appropriate club witnesses to verify) and also attend three club hikes. After quickly fulfilling all these conditions, two months later Phyl applied for active membership.

      Just before the War, the BCMC boasted an active ninety members, One of the presidents later recalled the breadth of members’ talents and variety of their backgrounds and occupations. He listed: “two lawyers, two land surveyors, three bankers, one botanist, two electricians, three salesmen, two railwaymen, two exporters, two nurses, seven stenographers, one meteorologist, three printers, one postman, one civil engineer, one cigar maker, one piano tuner, two real estate men – all gentlemen and gentlewomen.”

      Phyl soon volunteered her services, and at the March 1917 annual general meeting she agreed to stand for nomination both as a director on the executive committee and also for the club cabin committee. She was elected to the latter position. The following year Phyl was elected club librarian, a position she held for two terms.

      The club leased land on Grouse Mountain and built a large cabin on it. The cabin, which was big enough to provide shelter for a number of hikers and to accommodate gear, food supplies, and cooking needs, became a weekend haunt for many members. Members using the cabin were asked to sign a guest book recording their visit and the dates, along with the names of visitors they brought with them. Phyl was very familiar with the cabin. Her first recorded visit was in August 1915 when Phyl and her brother Dick signed their names alongside that of her friend Peggy Worsley, who as club member authorized their visit. A few months later, after Phyl herself became a member, she began to bring her own friends and family to the cabin.

      The club was egalitarian in nature and because it was relatively small and local, members didn’t have to travel far afield as did those belonging to the Alpine Club of Canada, whose activities centred on the Rocky Mountains. The BCMC’s regular weekend trips were inexpensive because everyone pooled their resources and shared food, and it was very informal. Beginning the trips on Saturday afternoon (after most office workers finished their shift) instead of in the morning allowed the majority of the members to attend.

      Climbers were an unusual breed, and they kept their activities mostly to themselves and fellow climbers because in their experience the urban population had no interest in the outdoors and could not believe others desired to escape from the modern city and go to the hills. What attraction could there be to “set out into the wilderness” for no particular reason – not to log, not to fish, not to clear land, not to build a road – but merely to enjoy the experience?

      Hiking – the outdoors, the challenges, the wonderful variety and wonder in nature, the camaraderie of like-minded souls – was a tonic for Phyl. Fellow club member Neal Carter echoed Phyl’s own feelings of delight to discover “that there was a whole Club of People who Liked to Climb Mountains; that They had a Cabin on the slopes of Grouse and Their Own Trail.” Another club member penned a verse in the style of Robert Service and the closing lines summed up the feelings of those early climbers.

      But say, comrade mine, isn’t it fine,

      Dog tired and loaded for fair,

      To struggle back with a twisted pack,

      And think of the joys up there.

      Climbers like Phyl felt they could not survive without frequent opportunities to get out of

Скачать книгу