We all know that there have been women in British Columbia since the early days, and they were not just ironing shirts and baking bread. They organized unions, won elections, started schools and hospitals and became judges, scientists, artists and doctors. BC has benefited from a long tradition of energetic women who have had an impact on the province as we know it. The twenty women profiled in this book didn't all succeed in everything they attempted, but they were flexible, saw what needed to be done and just did it.

Mainstays: Women Who Shaped Bc

Biographies & Memoirs

Converse, Cathy

Community & Culture

Touchwood Ed

Agnes Deans Cameron was an extraordinary woman who was ahead by a century. Born in Victoria in 1863, not only was she the first female principal in the province, she also was very involved in equal rights advocacy, and worked tirelessly to achieve work equality and voting rights for women. She put western Canada on the map through her writing, which was published internationally including in The Saturday Evening Post. She was also a trailblazer in sports, becoming the first “Lady Centurion” in the West.A consummate trailblazer, in the summer of 1908, Cameron travelled 10,000 miles down the Mackenzie River and out into the Beaufort Sea―something no other European woman had done―in one short season.Cameron was named one of the top 150 most significant individuals in the history of the province of British Columbia, and this is the first book commemorating her life.

Against the Current: The Remarkable Life of Agnes Deans Cameron

Touchwood Editions

After her husband died in 1926 from a suspected drowning, Capi Blanchet spent every summer cruising BC’s west coast with her five children and their dog in the family’s 25-foot boat. The Curve of Time is the book Capi wrote chronicling these adventures, and it remains a bestseller and a classic in the annals of nautical literature. But little is known about the rest of her life. Cathy Converse found herself asking: who was this skipper, this mother, this writer? In this biography, Converse offers insiders' recollections of this enigmatic woman, along with family photos and updated information about the villages, inlets and islands described in The Curve of Time. Following the Curve of Time is essential reading for anyone who has ever been captivated by the book, the West Coast or Capi herself.

Following the Curve of Time: The Legendary M. Wylie Blanchet

Arts & Literature

Frances Barkley was just eighteen when she became the first European woman to set foot on the west coast of North America. After a sheltered upbringing in England, Frances found herself boarding theImperial Eagle in 1786 to set sail on an adventurous, round-the-world voyage with her husband, Captain Charles William Barkley.
With great wisdom and wit, Frances recounted her eight years at sea in her Reminiscences as she found herself in a wider world, helping her husband in his business, giving birth to her children, surviving the tragedy of a young daughter's death and meeting strange and foreign peoples. Today's place names of Barkley Sound, Frances Island, Imperial Eagle Channel and others on Vancouver Island-as well as the ship Frances Barkley-are standing memorials to the enterprising and courageous Barkleys.
Originally researched by writer Beth Hill, The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley has been expanded on by writer and historian Cathy Converse to bring the intrepid young bride and her world to life for a new generation of readers.

The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley, 1769-1845

Hill, Beth

Historical

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Converse, Cathy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Converse, Cathy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Converse, Cathy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mainstays: Women Who Shaped Bc

Against the Current: The Remarkable Life of Agnes Deans Cameron

Following the Curve of Time: The Legendary M. Wylie Blanchet

The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley, 1769-1845