gassed during the First World War; his wife scatters his ashes from a small airplane over Mount Munday.
North Korea invades South Korea; the UN mounts a police action; Canada sends troops.
1952
Forty years after incorporation, the PGE Railway finally reaches Prince George, B.C.. King George VI dies and is succeeded by his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
1953
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world; Hillary is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1955
When Sir Edmund Hillary visits B.C., Phyl Munday accompanies him on an airplane tour of the Mount Waddington area. Phyl Munday is commandant at the Girl Guides’ first All Canada Adventure Camp at Lake O’Hara in Yoho National Park.
1957
Phyl Munday begins another term (three-year) as North Vancouver Girl Guide Division Commissioner.
1958
1958 In B.C., an engineering mistake causes the partially completed span of the new Second Narrows Bridge over Burrard Inlet to collapse, killing eighteen and injuring twenty; the North Vancouver ferry system closes.
1960
Following the assassination of her husband, Ceylon’s Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike becomes the world’s first female prime minister. In B.C., the Second Narrows Bridge opens.
1961
In Canada, Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas calls a special session of the legislature to enact medicare; he resigns as premier before the legislation is passed and goes to Ottawa as head of the newly formed New Democratic Party.
1962
1962
Although she is sixty-eight years old, Phyl Munday begins a long term as Woodcraft Adviser for the B.C. Girl Guides.
B.C. Electric Railway Company is taken over by the provincial government and becomes the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority.
1964
In B.C., at Alta Lake adjacent to the northwest boundary of Garibaldi Park, a ski resort opens on Whistler Mountain.
1965
The extent of the Coast Mountains of B.C. is revealed when climber Dick Culbert writes A Climber’s Guide to the Coastal Range of British Columbia.
1967
1967
The St. John Ambulance honours Phyl Munday by naming her Dame of Grace, and the American Alpine Club gives her an honorary membership.
Canada celebrates the 100th anniversary of Confederation; Expo 67 opens in Montreal; French President Charles De Gaulle visits Canada and shouts “Vive le Québec libre!” during an outdoor speech at Montreal’s City Hall.
1971
Phyl Munday becomes Honorary President of the ACC.
1972
1972
Dick James (brother) dies. Governor General Roland Michener presents Phyl Munday with the Order of Canada.
The name of Ceylon changes to Sri Lanka.
1975
Phyl Munday receives the Girl Guide Long Service Award in May.
1976
In Quebec, the separatist Parti Québécois is elected under the leadership of Réne Lévesque.
1982
Accompanied by a television camera crew for “Thrill of a Lifetime,” Phyl Munday helicopters over Mount Waddington and lands on the Homathko Icefield.
1985
Phyl Munday Nature House is opened by the Girl Guides in Lighthouse Park, Point Atkinson, West Vancouver.
1990
Phyllis Munday dies on April 11 at the age of ninety-five. The Girl Guides establish the Phyl Munday Environmental Fund.
1994
In B.C. the bridge over Burrard Inlet at the Second Narrows is renamed the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing to honour the men who died in 1958 while building it.
1997
Edith Munday dies.
1998
Canada Post issues the Phyllis Munday stamp in their Legendary Canadians stamp series to honour her many years of service with the Girl Guides of B.C. and her accomplishments in mountaineering and nature photography. The Alpine Club of Canada sponsors the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival and designates it the Phyllis and Don Munday Award.
1999
The B.C. government officially apologizes for the hanging of the Tsilhqot’in men in the aftermath of the “Chilcotin War” in 1864.
2002
The United Nations designates 2002 as UN International Year of Mountains.
Sources Consulted
Archival Records
Phyllis and Don Munday: diaries, correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, films and oral reminiscences. British Columbia Archives.
Vancouver District, Girl Guides of Canada records. Guide House, Vancouver.
North Vancouver Girl Guide Archives, Girl Guides of Canada, Vancouver.
Girl Guides of Canada. British Columbia Council. British Columbia Archives.
British Columbia Mountaineering Club fonds. British Columbia Mountaineering Club, Vancouver.
Phyllis and Don Munday photographs. North Vancouver Museum and Archives.
Walter Alfred Don Munday fonds. Museum of the Royal Westminster Regiment.
Published Works
Published Articles by Phyllis Munday:
“First Ascent Of Mount Robson By Lady Members,” Canadian Alpine Journal, 1924.
“To Mount Waddington with Hillary,” Canadian Alpine Journal, 1956.
“Wild Animals.” Vancouver Province, 6 November 1927.
“A Pioneer Homemaker ’Mid Mountaintop Snows,” Vancouver Province, 29 December 1927.
“Miss Dennis [a pig],” Vancouver Province, 20 February 1928.
Other Publications:
The B.C. Mountaineer, (1923 – 1930 consulted) newsletter of the British Columbia Mountaineering Club.
Canadian Alpine Journal, (1920 – 1950 consulted), publication of the Alpine Club of Canada.
Smith, Cyndi. Off the Beaten Track. Jasper: Coyote Books, 1989.
Munday, Don. The Unknown Mountain. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1948.
Munday, Don. The Unknown Mountain. Expanded edition including essay “Behind the Unknown Mountain” by Angus. M. Gunn. Lake Louise: Coyote Books, 1993.
Munday, Don. Mount Garibaldi Park, Vancouver’s Alpine Playground. Cowan and Brook House Printers, 1922.
Brookhouse, A.A. A ’Hike Up Grouse Mountain. The Experiences of an Unwilling Tenderfoot on his Birthday Jaunt. Vancouver, 1926.
Leslie, Susan. In the Western Mountains, Early Mountaineering in British Columbia. Sound Heritage Volume VIII, Victoria: Provincial Archives of British Columbia, 1980.
Media:
“Our Pioneers and Neighbours: Phyllis Munday.” Television interview with Olga Ruskin, Cable West, 1982.
Vancouver Province newspaper, Vancouver.
Daily Colonist newspaper, Victoria.
Guiding remained a lifelong passion for Phyllis Munday, seen here at Guide Camp in 1955 at the age of sixty.
