Alone in Silence: European Women in the Canadian North Before 1940It has been estimated that over 500 European women travelled or lived in Canada's Northwest Territories before 1940. They came as visiters, journalists, and artists, or worked as nurses, scientists, and missionaries. In Alone in Silence Barbara Kelcey describes the women who lived and worked in the north and the unique situations they faced. Kelcey details their struggles with the domestic realities of setting up a home or living in the hostile conditions imposed by the geography, as well as their need to adjust the way they worked. The rich sources left by Christian missionaries provide details of missionary women caught up in the zeal of their vocation but held within the confines of a paternal church. The letters and reports of the Grey Nuns who worked alongside the Oblate Fathers in the Mackenzie indicate the hardships imposed by their situation but also show how driven they were by their missionary purpose. Alone in Silence is the first book to address the anonymity of European women in the North. Kelcey draws from a diverse field of sources, making use of published and primary sources so scattered that there has been no previous sense of collective memories. By giving voice to this neglected group she offers a unique perspective on the vast literature on life in the north. |
Contents
A Long While Between Dog Teams Climate Communications and Isolation | 13 |
Meatless Wheatless and Sweetless Days The Domestic Arrangements of a Northern Home | 32 |
Speaking of Me and Franklin Women Travellers in the Arctic | 55 |
Travels With the More Realistic Sex in the 1920s and 1930s | 76 |
Standing in the Gap Anglican Women and the Northern Mission | 95 |
Faith Inspires Distinguishes and Explains It The Grey Nuns Mission in the North | 121 |
White Women Have Strange Ways Connections and Distinctions between Cultures | 136 |
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Common terms and phrases
Addie Butler Agnes Cameron Agnes Deans Cameron Aklavik Anglican Anglican mission Archives arrived Baffin Island Bishop Bompas Canada Canadian north Caulkin Chesterfield Inlet Christian Christina Fry Christmas Church Clara Rogers Colcleugh cultural Dene described diary dogs Eastern Arctic Edmonton Elizabeth Taylor Emma Eskimo explained female Fleming Fort Providence Fort Resolution Fort Simpson Grey Nuns Hay River Herschel Island Hirst hospital Ibid Indian Inuit women Isobel Hutchison isolation journey Kathleen Shackleton Letter Leaflet Living Message Luta Munday Mackenzie River Marion Grange Mary Lyman McKeand Miss Cameron Miss Shackleton Montreal Mother Mounty's Wife MSCC Nascopie native women Northwest Territories nurses Oblates Pangnirtung Post RCMP recorded region Roman Catholic Sadie Stringer settlement Shingle Point ship sisters snow Society Spendlove supply tion told trading trip Typescript Umoak white European women white women Winifred Marsh Winnipeg winter wives woman wrote Yukon
References to this book
Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon Kenneth Coates,William Robert Morrison No preview available - 2005 |