Agnes Deans Cameron
Works by Agnes Deans Cameron:
From ABC BookWorld, "The first celebrated author who was born in B.C., male or female, was Agnes Deans Cameron. Her funeral cortege in 1912 was the largest the city of Victoria had ever witnessed. Upon her death, the Daily Colonist of Victoria declared, "It is possible that when the history of British Columbia comes to be written the name of Agnes Deans Cameron will be inscribed therein as the most remarkable woman citizen of the province."
Cameron was most widely known for her journalism and her crusading social spirit, campaigning tirelessly on behalf of women's suffrage. She also wrote one significant book about her adventures, The New North: Being Some Account of a Woman's Journey through Canada to the Arctic (1910), written after she and her niece were purportedly the first white women to reach the Arctic overland in 1908. She is also touted as the first European woman to travel 10,000 miles down the Mackenzie River to the Beaufort Sea in one season.
Cameron became British Columbia's first female high school teacher in 1890 and its first female principal in 1894. She was also one of British Columbia's first female journalists, and one of Canada's best-known writers in the first half of the 20th century, publishing extensively in Canadian and American magazines such as Saturday Evening Post, Pacific Monthly, The Canadian Magazine, Educational Journal of Western Canada and The Coast.
Cameron wrote and published fiction as early as 1903 and became a perceptive observer of Inuit and Chipewyan culture and women. She travelled extensively in later years promoting immigration to western Canada and addressing audiences at Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrew's University and the Royal Geographical Society.
For Canada's 150th anniversary of confederation, Agnes Deans Cameron was named one of the top 150 most significant individuals in the history of the province of British Columbia, but precious few people know much about her in Canada.
Cameron is the subject of Cathy Converse's Against the Current: The Remarkable Life of Agnes Deans Cameron (Touchwood, 2018).
Cathy Converse was first introduced to Agnes Deans Cameron when Roberta Pazdro contributed a chapter to a book Converse co-edited with Barba Latham in 1980, In Her Own Right: Selected Essays Women's History in B.C.
"The events that shaped Cameron's life, her integrity, her courage, and her intelligence piqued my interest," she says. "I was drawn to the fact that she was a strong woman who wrote her own script and was able to make the very best out of the very worst.
"As a woman, I also felt that she could teach me about confidence and how to deflect the arrows that threaten to slay us the moment we dare to step apart from the norm.
"Some of the elements in her life intersected with my own. We were both teachers, both passionate about British Columbia, both writers, and while she spent time on rivers in scows, I plied the waters in kayaks.
"For the time being I tucked her story into the recesses of my mind and went on to explore and write about other remarkable women and their contributions to our country. Agnes Deans Cameron, however, never let go of me. For years she followed me around revealing small bits about herself. An article about her would appear in a magazine; she popped up in a calendar paying tribute to women who made significant contributions to Canada. Her image was stitched into a tapestry that toured the country. She made brief appearances in books about early travellers, educators, and famous writers...
"There finally came a point when I could no longer ignore her story. And so, she took me on an incredible journey, which I shall treasure until I too become part of the past."
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The number of books that relate to the rise of feminism within B.C., or celebrate women's extraordinary achievements, is vast and they merit consideration as a genre of their own. For example, the prairie reformer and author Nellie McClung is seldom recognized as a British Columbian, but she lived in Victoria from 1935 until her death in 1951.
[For some other authors pertaining to women's issues and lives in British Columbia, see abcbookworld for Aberdeen, Lady; Acker, Alison; Adams, Amanda; Aguirre, Carmen; Allan, Elaine; Allison, Susan; Amberston, Celu; Andersen, Doris; Andersen, Marnie; Angus, Julie; Armstrong, Luanne; Arnott, Joanne; Artz, Sibylle; Backhouse, Frances; Baker, Marie Annharte; Barkley, Frances; Barman, Jean; Barnsley, Jan; Barnwell, Leslie; Baxter, Sheila; Beck, Lily Adams; Billy, Mary; Birchwater, Sage; Blackman, Margaret; Blackwood, Margaret; Blair, Hilary; Blanchet, M. Wylie; Boissery, Beverley; Bourgeois-Doyle, Richard I.; Boyd, Susan; Bramham, Daphne; Bridge, Kathryn; Brown, Audrey Alexandra; Brown, Jennifer; Callison, Daisy Elizabeth; Cameron, Anne; Cameron, June Carey, Betty; Carpenter, Cecilia Svinth; Carr, Emily; Cash, Gwen; Chase, Gillean; Chong, Denise; Chunn, Dorothy; Clarkes, Lincoln; Cobb, Myrna; Cohen, Marjorie Griffin; Coleman, Anne; Collis, Septima M.; Converse, Cathy; Cracroft, Sophia; Crosby, Emma; Crossland, Jackie; Crowie, Jasana; Cruikshank, Julie; Culhane, Dara; Currie, Dawn; Czajkowski, Chris; Daniel, Barbara; Daniluk, Judith; Davidson, Florence; Day, Shelagh; Dean, Misao; Delany, Sheila; Diamond, Sara; Dossa, Parin; Douglas, Amelia; Douglas, Gilean; Dowse, Sara; Dragu, Margaret; Duder, Cameron; Dufferin, Lady; Duffus, Maureen; Duncan, (Sandy) Frances; Dutton, Donald; Edwards, Anne; Edwards, Isabel; Elliott, Marie Anne; Faith, Karlene; Ferguson, Marjorie; Fertig, Mona; Finlay, K.A.; Flood, Cynthia; Flynn, Bethine; Forbes, Elizabeth; Forsberg, Tor; Foubister, Linda; Fraser, Clara; Fraser, Marian; Gerson, Carole; Gibson, Valerie; Gilbert, Lara; Glick-Reiman, Beth; Goldsmith, Penny; Gough, Lyn; Gould, Jan; Graydon, Shari; Greene, Trevor; Greenslade, Frances; Grey, Jan; Grey, Winifred; Griffin, Betty; Guiled, Brenda; Hall, Jane; Halliday, Linda; Hankivsky, Olena; Hardwick, Joan; Harrison, Eunice; Hastings, Margaret Lang; Henshaw, Julia; Hessing, Melody; Hodgson, Barbara; Hollingsworth, Margaret; Holmes, Tori; Holt, Simma; Howard, Cori; Howard, Irene; Howarth, Jean; Hudson, Elizabeth; Hume, Stephen; Ingram, Susan; Jackel, Susan; Jensen, Vickie; Jewett, Pauline; Johnson, Peter; Jones, Beverley; Jones, Jo Fraser; Jordan, Rosa; Joussaye, Marie; Kawatski, Deanna; Kemper, Margaret; Kennedy, Louise; Kerr, Luella; Kingscote, Barbara; Kivi, K. Linda; Klassen, Ingrid; Knickerbocker, Nancy; Krawczyk, Betty; Kwa, Lydia; Lacombe, Danny; Lakeman, Lee; Lam, Fiona; Landale, Zoe; Latham, Barbara; Laur, Darren; Lee, Nancy; Lefevre, Lily Alice; LeGates, Marlene; Levy, Paul; Lewis, Norah L.; Lewis, S.P.; Lockharte, Susan; Long, Wendy; Lowman, John; Lowther, Pat; Lugrin, Nora de Bertrand; Luke, Pearl; MacGill, Elsie Gregory; Mackay, Isabel Ecclestone; MacLaren, Sherrill; MacPhee, Rosalind; Maes, Yvonne; Maguire, Diane; Manji, Irshad; Marlatt, Daphne; McClean, Sylvie; McKowan, Evah; McLaughlin, Karen; McLennan, Emily Augusta; McMaster, Lindsey; Meraw, Ann Mundigel; Minkus, Kim; Mitchell, Margaret; Moir, Rita; Moore, Mandy; Morra, Linda; Morrow, Marina; Morton, W.L.; Murphy, Claire Rudolph; Murphy, Emily Gowan; Neering, Rosemary; Nichols, Marjorie; Nickerson, Betty; Norcross, Elizabeth Blanche; Norton, Wayne; Ormsby, Margaret Anchoretta; Page, Lafern; Palmer, Debbie; Parr, Joy; Penrose, Evelyn; Perrin, Dave; Perry, Adele; Phillips, Elizabeth; Potvin, Liza; Preece, Alison; Press, K.I.; Price, Lisa A.; Radha, Swami Sivananda; Raglon, Rebecca; Ravenhill, Alice; Reeve, Phyllis; Rink, Deborah; Roberts, Anita; Robideau, Henri; Robinson, Cass; Roger, Gertrude Minor; Roy, Carole; Rutherdale, Myra; Sager, Ed; Samant, Ganesh; Sarsfield, Mairuth Hodge; Schellenberg, Betty A.; Schwartz, Ellen; Scoones, Anny; Scott, Jean; Simpson, Elizabeth; Skinner, Constance Lindsay; Smith, Cyndi; Smith, Jessie Ann; Smith-Ayala, Emilie; Snowber, Celeste; Stanwell-Fletcher, Theodora; Stewart, Lee; Stewart, Mary Lynn; Stonehouse, Cathy; Stonier-Newman, Lynne; Storrs, Monica; Strong-Boag, Veronica; Sykes, Ella; Taylor, Dianne; Taylor, Georgina; Thobani, Sunera; Thompson, Dawn; Thomson, Ann; Townsend, Lorna; Trebett, Margaret; Trudeau, Margaret; Tuele, Nicholas; van Deusen, Kira; Van Kirk, Sylvia; Van Luven, Lynne; Vernon, Lorraine; Vertinsky, Patricia; Vries Maggie de; Warland, Betsy; Whelan, Dianne; White, Evelyn; Wilks, Claire Weissman; Williams, Carol; Wilson, Robert; Woodley, Barbara; Wright, Sunny; Young, Clair.]"