Phyl climbed close to one hundred mountains and made

           over thirty first ascents, many times being the first woman

           to reach the summit.

                                      Phyllis Munday: Mountaineer (2002) p.135

     

When Phyllis Munday (1894-1990) left this fragile earth our island home, the first

generation of BC mountaineering came to a fitting close. The tale of the life of Phyllis

Munday is well told and recounted in Kathryn Bridge’s well crafted missive, Phyllis

Munday: Mountaineer (2002). The book is a gentle read and keeper for those with

an interest in BC and Coastal Range mountain history.       

 

Phyllis Munday was the first women to ascend what was then thought the highest peak

in BC, Mt. Robson, in 1924. She, and her well known mountaineering husband, Don

Munday, from 1925-1935, did most of the hard pioneering work on Mount Waddington

(highest mountain in BC). Don wrote a most evocative book on their many attempts

to bag Mt. Waddington, and it was published in 1948 as The Unknown Mountain. Sadly

so, Don died in 1950. 

 

Phyllis Munday: Mountaineer is divided into twelve readable chapters that cannot but

hold and warm the reader to the passion and vocation of Phyllis’s life: 1) In the Wilds,

2) Learning by the Book, 3) Passionate About Guiding, 4) People Who Like to Climb

Mountains, 5) Bloomers and Britches, 6) Romance Above the Clouds, 7) Rambling High

on the Ridges, 8) Living in the Mountains, 9) Rising Above All the Others, 10) The Quest for

Mystery Mountain, 11) Climbing Season and 12) Climbing on Alone. The Epilogue,

‘Rewarded Beyond Measure’ and the Chronology of Phyllis Munday’s life are a fit

and fine way to conclude this primer on the most important woman in the earliest phase

of BC mountaineering history.

 

Phyllis Munday was known for more than her many ascents of BC’s white capped

peaks. She also played a substantive role in the BC Girl Guides movement. She was

offered their highest award for decades of service, and in 1972 she was given the Order

of Canada for her lifetime of service to the young, the mountains and an ecological

vision.

 

The sheer strength of Phyllis was legendary. She could often outpace and carry heavier

loads than most men, and she was as nimble as a mountain goat on the rocks. It is

impossible to understand the birth and development of BC mountaineering without sitting

at the feet of Phyllis Munday.

 

Phyllis Munday: Mountaineer is a must read for those with a hunger and taste for hiking,

rambling, scrambling and climbing in BC. The missive does lean towards the laudatory rather

than critical biography, but if the book  is seen as a primer on Phyllis Munday, such concerns

can be brushed aside with a wave of the gentle hand.

 

There are even, for those of us who live in the Central-Upper Fraser Valley, some exquisite

morsels on the time spent by Phyllis/Don in the Hope-Cheam area in 1923-1924. And, of course,

Baby Munday Peak (named after Phyllis/ Don’s daughter, Edith) is in the Cheam range. Lady Peak,

in the same Cheam massif, is named after Phyllis Munday.

Do, if and when time permits, pick up and read Phyllis Munday: Mountaineer. This slim text

will whet the appetite for more mountain lore. 

 

-Ron Dart (BCMC)