to vote. King Edward VII dies and is succeeded by his son, King George V.
1912
1912
Led and chaperoned by Elsie Carr, a member of the BCMC, and dressed in heavy skirts, Phyllis and her Girl Guide company hike to the top of Grouse Mountain.
King George V grants a Royal Charter to the Boy Scout movement throughout the British Commonwealth; Robert and Agnes Baden-Powell publish The Handbook for Girl Guides. In B.C., the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE) is incorporated; Swiss guide Edward Feuz, Jr. moves permanently to B.C., bringing mountain culture and traditions to Canada. Titanic strikes an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland and sinks; 1490 people perish.
1913
1913
At the Empire Day parade in New Westminster, Phyllis meets Amy Leigh, lieutenant of the Burnaby Girl Guide Company.
Guided by Conrad Kain, W.W. “Billy” Foster and Albert H. MacCarthy make the first recognized ascent of Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies; a Mount Robson Provincial Park is established.
1914
1914
Wearing an ankle-length skirt, Phyllis swims fifty metres in the ocean and wins her badge. Phyllis’s Girl Guide company takes on projects for the war effort. Phyllis attends St. John Ambulance Brigade classes and earns First Aid and Home Nursing certificates so she can teach these skills to her fellow Girl Guides. Phyllis’s sister, Betty, marries Arthur Richard McCallum.
In B.C., Canada’s Governor General, the Duke of Connaught and Strathern, inspects the Girl Guides in Vancouver. On August 4, Britain declares war on Germany; Canada is automatically in the war; young men eagerly join the army.
1915
The Women’s Volunteer Corps is established in Vancouver to train women for volunteer wartime service. At the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium, Germans facing a French unit use chlorine gas for the first time; the First Canadian Division is gassed on April 24; Canadian Dr. John McCrae writes “In Flanders Fields” on May 3.
1916
1916
For her first big BCMC climb; Phyllis climbs the West Lion with a group that includes soldiers on leave awaiting orders to go overseas to fight in Europe. Phyllis’s Girl Guides present a musical entertainment, “The Posy Bed” at the Imperial Theatre to raise money for “patriotic causes.”
Frederick Banting (future co-discoverer of insulin) graduates in the same medical school class as Norman Bethune (future founder of the Canadian Blood Transfusion Service). In B.C., the troubled PGE Railway manages to complete the part of the main line that extends from Squamish to Clinton.
1917
1917
Phyllis is elected to the BCMC cabin committee. In July, Don Munday is awarded the Military Medal “for valour at the Battle of the Triangle” at Vimy; in October he is wounded severely in the left forearm at Passchendaele.
Canadian armed forces in France are responsible for a major Allied victory at Vimy Ridge in April. In Canada, the Military Services Act imposes conscription, which divides French and English Canadians; to ensure the election of the incumbent Union government, the bill allows army nurses and female relatives of servicemen to vote. In Belgium, the Battle of Passchendaele (third battle of Ypres) begins; over 15,000 Canadians are killed or wounded in the assault, which eventually captures the village but brings no strategic gain. October (Bolshevik) Revolution in Russia deposes the monarchy. Chief Scout Baden-Powell publishes Girl Guiding
1918
1918
Phyllis is working at Royal Columbian Hospital as a stenographer when she meets Don Munday who is a patient there; when he is granted weekend leaves they begin to hike together; Don is discharged from the army in the fall. Phyllis becomes BCMC librarian.
On November 11 the Allies and Germany sign the armistice to end the First World War, which has killed 8 million people – 60,000 of them Canadians. In Canada, all female citizens (except status First Nations women) are allowed to vote. An influenza epidemic that will kill 22 million people begins to spread around the world.
1919
1919
Phyllis and her Guides attend the first Provincial Girl Guide Rally in Victoria; their company is inspected by the Prince of Wales. On a club hike with Don Munday on Mount Baker in Washington State, Phyllis senses that Don is in danger and saves him from going over an edge.
On a visit to Canada, the Prince of Wales buys a ranch in Alberta. In Canada, the federal government nationalizes several indebted railways to form the Canadian National Railway (CNR), the longest system in North America. In Ottawa, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the first French-speaking prime minister of Canada, dies. Edmund Percival Hillary (future mountaineer) is born in Auckland, New Zealand.
1920
1920
Phyllis James marries Don Munday at Christ Church Vancouver on February 4; for their honeymoon they take the ferry to North Vancouver, the Capilano streetcar to the end of the line, and then walk to the west ridge of Dam Mountain to the cabin Don has built; later that month they go to Mount Robson Provincial Park to climb Lynx Mountain and Resplendent Mountain. Since married women tend not to work outside the home, Phyl Munday becomes a housewife and devotes her energies to Girl Guiding; she organizes a ladies’ committee and creates the 1st Vancouver Brownie Pack with herself as Brown Owl. Phyl Munday becomes pregnant, but contrary to acceptable behaviour she continues to climb and backpack until her condition is apparent.
By order-in-council the B.C. government establishes Garibaldi Park Reserve. In the United States (U.S.), women are allowed to vote for the first time. In Ontario, Agnes Macphail addresses the United Farmers of Ontario convention; she will represent the party the following year when she becomes the first woman to be elected to the Canadian Parliament.
1921
1921
Phyl Munday gives birth to a daughter, Edith, on March 26; the baby goes on a climb up Crown Mountain with her parents eleven weeks later.
Baden-Powell receives a baronetcy from King George V.
1922
Phyl Munday’s father, Frank, dies.
1923
1923
In February, Phyl Munday is the only woman on a snowshoe trip to Mount Strachan; in the following months she goes on BCMC expeditions to Goat Mountain, Cathedral Mountain, and Dam Mountain; the club annual camp in August is at Alta Lake, a destination that requires complicated travel arrangements but rewards them with excursions in Garibaldi Park and a first ascent of Mount Blackcomb and Overlord Mountain; later that month they travel inland to the Cheam Range where three peaks in a group called the “Lucky Four” bear the names Foley, Welch and Stewart after a company of railway builders; the fourth peak is named Baby Munday Peak in honour of Edith Munday, who usually accompanies her parents on these expeditions; another mountain is named Lady Peak in Phyl Munday’s honour; the Mundays make the first ascent of Mount Stewart.ACC begins to publish The Gazette. The Mundays agree to join a partnership to develop Grouse Mountain for recreational use; Don cuts a trail from the streetcar terminus to the Grouse Plateau and begins to build Alpine Lodge; the family lives in a tent on site until they can move into the unfinished cabin ten days before Christmas. Phyl Munday receives the Girl Guide Medal of Merit in September.
Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, Chief Scout and Chief Guide, visit B.C. In Toronto, Dr. Frederick Banting is notified that he has won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of insulin; he shares his prize with Dr. Charles Best.
1924
1924
Doing all the work themselves, the Mundays sell meals and refreshments at Alpine Lodge; due to the isolation of her Grouse Mountain home, Phyl Munday requests leave of absence from her Girl Guide Company; in March, she organizes and registers the 1st Company of Lone Guides and becomes its captain. The Mundays return to the Cheam Range to make the first ascent of Mount Foley; then they head to Hope, B.C. to search successfully for the Eureka-Victoria silver mine. On July 29, Phyl Munday becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies; the expedition is guided by Conrad Kain.
In Ottawa, Agnes Macphail and nine other members of the Progressive Party form the “Ginger Group” with members of the Labour Party; the group supports proportional representation, sexual equality, and prison reform.
1925
1925
In June, Phyl Munday is given the first Girl Guide Award for Valour, Bronze Cross for rescuing and nursing teenager Sid Harling on Grouse Mountain. The climbing season begins in May with a warm-up jaunt up Mount Garibaldi followed by an ascent of Mount Arrowsmith on Vancouver Island where the Mundays look across Georgia Strait and notice one tall peak in particular; because it disappears in the clouds they name it Mystery Mountain. In June the Mundays make a first ascent of Mount Sir John Thompson and a second ascent of Mount Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the Cariboo Mountains;
