100 More Canadian Heroines

by Merna Forster

Ada Annie, circa 1907.

  Cougar Annie

  Ada Annie Rae-Arthur

  1888–1985

  She cleared forests, she trapped, she shot cougars. A typical Canadian pioneer.

  As a young woman Ada Annie Jordan was bold and beautiful, with piercing blue eyes. She would need every ounce of her strength — and courage — to survive the horrific ordeals ahead.

  Ada Annie was born in California, the daughter of a wandering Brit who’d married his housekeeper. The domineering George Jordan took his family from continent to continent, from the United States to England, South Africa, Lloydminster, Winnipeg, and finally Vancouver. Ada Annie endured a lonely childhood due to frequent moves that separated her from friends and favourite pets.

  Taught to shoot when she was just seven, Ada Annie became a crack shot while they lived in South Africa. As a teenager, she learned shorthand and typing in Johannesburg, and trapping skills from her father in Lloydminster. By the time the family moved to Vancouver, he’d become a veterinarian, so Ada Annie helped out and also worked as a stenographer.

  Ada Annie married a charming Scot named William (Willie) Rae-Arthur in 1909. The young couple began raising a family in Vancouver, where Willie worked as a clerk for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Ada Annie’s hopes for a happy marriage vanished as it became clear that Willie was an alcoholic and an opium addict. In spring 1915, the Rae-Arthurs and their three children moved far from the temptations of Vancouver’s opium dens and Willie’s boozing buddies. They settled in one of the most remote areas of the west coast of Vancouver Island, at the head of Hesquiat Harbour.

  After journeying up the coast by steamer, the young family paddled to shore in a canoe with all of their luggage. They lugged their belongings through massive cedars to a log cabin in the wilderness. Ada Annie was pregnant, but she began the immense task of clearing the land with a mattock and axe. While Willie contributed somewhat to settling the family in their isolated home, he was a city-boy out of his element. He got lost if he stepped a few feet off a trail.

  The couple spent the remainder of their lives in Boat Basin, struggling to feed and cloth their growing family. Ada Annie gave birth to eight more children, three of which died. In a desperate effort to sustain the family, she worked from dawn to dusk clearing the forest to make space for a garden. With the children’s help, she eventually cleared seven acres and planted a large potato patch, vegetable garden, and fruit trees.

  Ada Annie created a beautiful garden in the rainforest. She planted a wide variety of plants with seeds ordered from catalogues. Growing everything from exotic trees to shrubs and flowers, she developed a nursery business and shipped out produce. Dahlias were her specialty, and she had up to 200 varieties. Unfortunately, her business never brought in much money.

  Ada Annie also raised a variety of animals. She had as many as 100 chickens at a time, as well as fifty goats, dozens of rabbits, ducks, geese, and black pigs. She tried raising guinea pigs and mink, and sold the furs. When times were tough, she shot wild cattle to feed the many hungry mouths. She also established a small store and a post office, which was approved only after considerable wrangling with authorities. Despite her best efforts, the children sometimes had nothing but porridge to eat morning, noon, and night.

  Ada Annie Rae-Arthur.

  Photo by John Manning.

  Ada Annie would stop at nothing to look after her family. She once carried a sick child on her back down the rugged coast, spending the night in a cave before reaching help. She shot anything that killed or threatened her livestock, including at least seventy cougars and about eighty black bears. She gained widespread renown as a cougar hunter, earning her the nickname Cougar Annie. Money from the pelts helped pay for supplies and building materials. In 1955, Cougar Annie earned $400 from selling the skins of the ten cougars she shot that year.

  Despite gifts and money from Willie’s sister in Scotland, there wasn’t enough to provide well for their children. In 1922, a land inspector was appalled by the living conditions, even though Ada Annie tried to homeschool the children. The three eldest were forcibly removed from the home, and a fourth was taken later. The children spent up to five years at school in Vancouver, living at the Children’s Aid Home. The family couldn’t see one another during this period, but was eventually reunited, and the younger children were allowed to receive their education at home.

  After Willie drowned in the summer of 1936, Cougar Annie placed ads in the Western Producer and the Winnipeg Free Press to find a new man, with mixed results. She outlasted three more husbands, including two who beat her and tried to steal her money. One gentlemen suitor, Robert Culver, spent time at Boat Basin but couldn’t cope with the isolation. He continued to write her affectionate letters throughout his life.

  In later years the fiercely independent Cougar Annie was determined to remain on her land despite being almost completely blind. She still had no electricity or running water. This courageous pioneer died at ninety-seven and her ashes were scattered on Cougar Annie’s Garden. Years later the garden was reclaimed by new owner Peter Buckland, and the Boat Basin Foundation is determined to preserve it. Cougar Annie’s exploits are still legendary on the West Coast.

  Quote:

  “BC Widow with Nursery and orchard wishes partner. Widower preferred. Object matrimony.”[1]

  Hilda Ranscombe.

  Courtesy of Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame

  She Shoots, She Scores

  Hilda Ranscombe

  1913–1998

  A hockey heroine of the 1930s, she opened doors for other women.

  The crowd roared when Hilda Ranscombe scored on future NHLer Terry Sawchuck in 1946. According to one veteran hockey player, “They saw the greatest female hockey player score on the boy who would become the game’s greatest goaltender.”[1] Hilda skated with dazzling speed and looked invincible with puck and stick.[2]

  If you assume that hockey is a man’s game played only recently by women, think again. Lord Stanley’s daughter first played in an organized hockey game at Rideau Hall in 1889. There were skilled women hockey players during the golden age of women’s sports in the 1920s and 1930s — when hockey great Hilda Ranscombe shone. She was the best in Canada, maybe even the best in the world.

  Born in Doon, Ontario, Hilda was a natural athlete. She excelled at baseball and tennis, as well as hockey, which she began playing on the frozen Grand River with a group of girls. They formed a team and called it the Preston Rivulettes, eventually moving their games indoors to an unheated arena. With Hilda as captain, the Preston Rivulettes became the most famous women’s hockey team in Canadian history.

  The team played its first game in February 1931. The team’s extraordinary success soon attracted media coverage and fans across the country. During the 1930s, the team played 350 games, and lost only three. The Rivulettes won the Ontario title ten times, the eastern Canadian championships six times, and the Lady Bessborough Trophy — the equivalent of a national championship, created in 1935 — six times. More than 6,000 cheering fans attended their 1935 two-game series against Winnipeg when the Rivulettes won the national title. Such incredible success wouldn’t have been possible without Hilda Ranscombe.

  “Hilda was 80 per cent of the team … without her they wouldn’t have won what they won,”[3] recalled Sam Collard. Dependable, determined, and disciplined, she never swore or lost her cool in the heat of the game. But she was a terror on ice, the leading scorer and the fastest female skater in the country. Her skills were comparable to, or even surpassed, her male counterparts. Former NHLer Carl Liscombe admitted that when he played with Hilda on the Grand River she played better than most of the boys, including himself.

  Hilda was also a strong and inspirational leader, appreciated for her warm personality and sportsmanship. She served as mentor to her teammates. This was particularly important when many of the new recruits were a decade younger than her and the other founding members. Hilda was always patient when helping younger players. W
ith her leadership the Preston Rivulettes gained national recognition and established high standards for women on the ice.

  Hilda and her teammates had big dreams. There was even talk of going to the Olympics. The Rivulettes were invited to play in Europe on a tour that would include London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Switzerland, but the Second World War forced the cancellation of the trip. The Preston Rivulettes disbanded in the early 1940s due to lack of funds. Most of their cherished trophies, pucks, photographs, and memorabilia were housed in the Preston Arena, which tragically burned to the ground.

  The Preston Rivulettes, with Hilda Ranscombe at far right on the second row.

  Courtesy of Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame

  Hilda worked in the insurance industry. She continued playing hockey and coached the Preston Trianglettes, mentoring a new generation of female hockey players in the 1960s. When Hilda took her team to the Lipstick Hockey Tournament in 1969, she was praised as the greatest female hockey player of the century. The Trianglettes presented Hilda with a trophy recognizing her contribution to ladies hockey.

  In her later years, Hilda remained active despite suffering from multiple sclerosis and losing her legs to diabetes. The modest hockey star wept with joy when inducted into the Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. She died that same year.

  “Preston’s own female version of Wayne Gretzky”[4] was never inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, despite recommendations from the Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame. As Carly Adams points out, inductions to the Hall “reinforce a gendered hierarchy of athletic accomplishment over the past century,” and the exclusion of women such as Hilda “suggests to the public that women have not made significant athletic accomplishments in hockey and are therefore unworthy of recognition.”[5]

  The lack of official recognition cannot erase the impact that Hilda had on women in hockey. N. Getty, a veteran goalie, was among those who thanked the elderly lady for opening doors that enabled her to play hockey. Her last words to Hilda were, “When I skate, you skate with me.”[6] The great one smiled.

  Quote:

  “We were supposed to go to Europe to play but then the war came and our boat was sunk. We never went.”[7]

  Kathleen Rice.

  Courtesy of St. Marys Museum

  The Prospector

  Kathleen Rice

  1883–1963

  Her fierce determination to mine, trap, and fend for herself in the wilds shocked, and sometimes horrified. She embodied a new type of woman.

  In the summer of 1928, news spread that a woman prospector was mining a rich strike of copper pyrite in northern Manitoba. The press marvelled that Kathleen Rice was competing in a sphere thought to belong to men alone. “This surely must complete the gamut of woman’s entry into world activities,” noted one newspaper.[1]

  Kathleen Rice was hailed as the first woman prospector. She was an exceptionally courageous and capable young woman, determined as well as self-sufficient. Not only was she a homesteader, hunter, trapper, canoeist, and all-around outdoorswoman, the successful prospector, self-taught geologist, and miner was also a trained teacher and mathematician. Plus she was stunning, a statuesque woman of six feet with blonde hair and piercing blue-green eyes.

  Kathleen was born in St. Marys, Ontario, in 1883. Her father taught her how to hunt and shoot, and shared his abandoned dreams of adventures on the frontier. As her grandfather, Samuel Dwight Rice, had founded a college for women, Kate was raised to believe in the importance of education for women. She graduated from the University of Toronto, where she studied mathematics, physics, and astronomy.

  Kathleen taught math in Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. While vacationing in the Rockies she developed sufficient climbing experience to earn membership in the Alpine Club of Canada. Eager for new adventures, she convinced her brother, George, to stake a homestead with her near The Pas, Manitoba, in 1913. George had no interest in farming but she needed him to obtain the 160-acre homestead. He soon returned east.

  The independent homesteader spent the winter of 1913 — alone except for her dogs — shooting partridges and snaring rabbits. Though Kathleen developed the land, she lost interest in farming after hearing stories of mineral discoveries in the North. She pored over geology books and learned about prospecting. In 1914, she headed out on her first prospecting trip alone, travelling by dogsled to stake a claim on the Sturgeon-Weir River.

  During the next fourteen years, the adventurous Kathleen honed her prospecting skills. She became an expert trapper, hunter, and canoeist, but knew her own limitations and hired men to assist her in prospecting, packing supplies, or building cabins. Her prospecting eventually led her to Herb Lake, where she moved onto an island that now bears her name.

  Kathleen began actively exploring Rice Island, but it wasn’t until eight years later that she finally struck copper, nickel, and zinc. She soon had a crew of ten men blasting, digging, and drilling. After news of the deposits brought a small stampede of prospectors and miners, developers began making her offers. Kathleen also found feldspar on Walrus Island, and was one of the first prospectors to locate vanadium.

  Kathleen revealed little about her personal life to the curious reporters who wrote about her amazing exploits, such as running rapids in her canoe without getting a drop of water inside, or protecting herself from a pack of wolves by lighting a fire. Conscious of her reputation, Kathleen didn’t reveal her secret: her nights in the wilderness weren’t quite as lonely as they imagined. Back in 1914, she’d moved into prospector Dick Woosey’s cabin. He was an ex-soldier whose wife returned to Britain shortly after she set eyes on Canada. He and Kathleen were business partners (and probably lovers) until he suddenly died in 1941.

  Kathleen Rice with dogsled, in northern Manitoba.

  Courtesy of St. Marys Museum

  She continued to live in their cabin on Rice Island after his death. Locals called her the Lady of the Lake. After years of isolation, Kathleen buried her mining fortune — estimated at $45,000 — and checked herself into a mental institution in Brandon, Manitoba. Far from crazy, she died in 1963 in Minnedosa, Manitoba.

  Dr. R.C. Wallace, a mining expert who knew Kathleen, identified her as one of the most competent prospectors.[2] Other contemporaries praised her as a “champion of the doctrine that there is no weaker sex … living a rare romance in the wilds of wildest northern Manitoba.”[3] This pioneering prospector and miner has been identified as one of the notable women geologists in Canadian history,[4] but isn’t widely remembered.

  Quote:

  “If women could understand the thrills of prospecting there would be lots of them doing it.… No woman need hesitate about entering the mining field because she is a woman — it isn’t courage that is needed so much as perseverance.”[5]

  From Slavery to Freedom

  Marie Marguerite Rose

  circa 1717–1757

  She was just another piece of property for most of her life, but has become a symbol of strength and dignity.

  From 1713 to 1758 there were about 400 slaves in the French colony of Île-Royale (now Cape Breton, Nova Scotia), mostly in Louisbourg.[1] Among them was Marie Marguerite Rose, a remarkable woman who survived nearly twenty years as a slave before gaining her freedom and becoming a successful tavern owner. Right next door to the home of the man who once owned her.

  Marie Marguerite Rose was captured by slave traders in Guinea and transported across the Atlantic to the bustling seaport of Louisbourg. In 1736, naval officer Jean Loppinot bought her for an unknown price, possibly branding her with a hot iron as the French were known to do. Marie Marguerite was baptized with a name selected by her owner and introduced to Roman Catholicism. She was probably illiterate and left no records of the horrors she would have experienced as a slave, so it is not known if she was physically or mentally abused.

  Marie Marguerite Rose survived the British attack on Louisbourg, 1745.

  Library and Archives Canada/Acc. No. R9266-3273 Peter Winkworth Collect
ion of Canadiana

  At this time there were about 1,500 people in Louisbourg, including fifty slaves. Like many female slaves, Marie Marguerite was expected to work in the family home every day except Sundays and holy days of obligation. She cooked all the meals, washed the clothes, and scrubbed the floors. She gave birth to a son, Jean-François, whose father is unknown. As the son of a slave, the boy was automatically enslaved and worked in the Loppinot house with his mother.

  Marie Marguerite’s son died when he was thirteen and she had no other children. When she was about thirty-eight, the longtime slave somehow managed to secure her freedom. It’s possible that she was purchased by Jean Baptiste Laurent, the Native man she married on becoming free. Both her emancipation and mixed marriage were exceptional.[2]

  Marie Marguerite went into business with her husband. The newlyweds stayed in Louisbourg and rented a building, where they lived and ran a tavern. It is astonishing that the former slave was able to open a popular business, attracting clientele from the fort. When she died suddenly on August 27, 1757, Marie Marguerite was not quite forty and had enjoyed just two years of freedom. She was buried in the Fortress of Louisbourg.

  The goods she left were valued at £274 — a rare accomplishment for a freed slave. Her belongings give us a window into her new life.[3] She had an extensive collection of used clothing and a pair of half-made woollen stockings. Her other possessions were balls of handmade soap, an iron, supplies for dyeing clothes, six pounds of sugar, and a cookbook, no doubt prized even though she was likely unable to read it. Marie Marguerite also left a thriving vegetable garden.