SCHAFFER
EMBRACED LIFE OF ADVENTURE
IN CANADIAN ROCKIES
BY JACKIE GOLD CANMORE LEADER STAFF
Born in Pennsylvania, Mary Schaffer was the first non-native
woman to tour around what are now Banff and Jasper National
Parks.
An accomplished artist photographer and writer, Schaffer had
an adventurous nature that was not appeased by her artwork
alone. Mary first came to the Canadian Rockies in 1889
with a group of individuals from the Philadelphia Academy of
Natural Sciences.
Joined by another art student, Mary Vaux, the two women travelled
part of the way to Banff via boxcar. A year later she returned
to the area, now a physician's wife. Schaffer met Dr. Charles
Schaffer while visiting the Glacier House in B.C, and after
their wedding they decided to return to the area, Charles having
a passion for botany, and in particular the wildflowers that
grew in abundance in the mountains.
Although they returned to the area every year until Charles's
death in 1903, Schaffer returned alone in 1891 with her friend
Mollie Adams. They hired guides Tom Wilson and Billy Warren
to help them explore the mountain ranges in both parks.
After her husband's death Schaffer returned with Adams to
explore the icefields and mountains, travelling further
on each visit. By 1906 the two women had begun to plan for
a major expedition in 1907. The pair did not let the more
rigid strictures of the Victorian Age slow them down in the
slightest. Neither did they allow their ages - they were
now both in their mid-40s, to slow them either.
Heading off into the mountains they spent the next four months
travelling by pack and in so doing developed an unshakeable
bond.
While criticized for their free-spirited actions the women
were firm in their beliefs that they belonged right in the
centre of the untamed mountain wilderness.
"Can the free air sully, can the birds teach us words
we should not hear, can it be possible to see, in such a summer's
outing, one sight as painful as the daily ones of poverty,
degradation and depravity of a great city?" they replied
to their critics.
The original plan for the four month tour was to visit as
many places as possible, including venturing all the way over
to the headwaters of the Saskatchewan and Athabasca Rivers,
as well as Beaver Lake . "Our real objective was to
delve into the heart of an untouched land,” Schaffer revealed
later. The unthumbed pages of an unread book, and to learn
daily those secrets which dear Mother Nature is so willing
to tell those who seek."
They failed to find Beaver Lake, however, having run into
heavy snow the end of the warmer months approached. On their
return journey Mary met a band of Stoney Natives, and had dinner
with them, an unusual occurrence for a Victorian lady
to say the least. The dinner proved to be a boon, however,
as one of the Natives in attendance, Samson Beaver, had
visited the lake with his father 20 years previous and sketched
a map for the women showing the route to the elusive lake.
On June 8, 1908 the women, accompanied by Billy Warren and
Sid Unwin, set out from Lake Louise to find Beaver Lake . They
used the map to help find their way through the mountainous
area, however as they descended Maligne Pass they became apprehensive
that the map may not be accurate. Almost a month after departing
from Lake Louise they finally reached the lake, and by all
accounts seem to be the first group of visitors to the lake
since Henry Macleod in 1875.
They decided to explore the area by way of the lake, and constructed
a raft, which they named H.M.S. Chaba, in honour of the
Native name for the lake, Chaba Imne.
They spent three days sailing around the lake from end to
end, and two weeks in total in the surrounding area. In that
time they saw no signs of human inhabitance or even visitors
other than themselves, "just masses of flowers, the lap-lap
of the waters on the shore, the occasional reverberating roar
of an avalanche and our own voices stilled by a nameless presence.”
Schaffer returned to the lake in 1911, surveying the area
at the request of the Parks Department sponsored in part by
the Grand Trunk Railway.
In 1912 she decided to move to the Rockies and purchased a
cottage in Banff . Three years later she and her guide Billy
Warren were married, having become friends along their various
treks through the woods.
Mount Schaffer and Lake Schaffer were named after Schaffer
in 1909, and are located in Yoho National Park despite the
fact that she was much less associated with that area of the
Canadian Rockies.
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