By Snowshoe, Buckboard and Steamer: Women of the British Columbia Frontier

by Kathryn Anne Bridge and Kathryn Bridge

Book Overview

The vivid, personal accounts of four women who lived and travelled as settlers in early British Columbia "...a cloud passing away from the face of the moon revealed a band of wild horses bearing down upon us at a full gallop. As they came near and saw us they divided into two groups, passing by on either side. Had the moon not come out they would probably have become entangled in our tent ropes, and we should not have lived to tell the tale."--Violet Sillitoe, between Osoyoos and Penticton The women in this book were trailblazers. The frontiers they lived on were not only geographical but personal. As they left the drawing rooms of England and eastern Canada for new lives in the far West, social patterns were disrupted, and the status quo dissolved. On the wagon roads and river boats of nineteenth-century British Columbia, they found risks, opportunities and freedoms far beyond those familiar to their more settled contemporaries. By Snowshoe, Buckboard and Steamer tells four extraordinary stories of life on the unruly edge of empire. Winner of the 1998 BC Lieutenant Governor's Medal for Historical Writing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0772673101
• ISBN13: 9780772673107
• Release Date: June 2019
• Publisher: Royal British Columbia Museum
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Proud of my pioneer heritage

Florence Agassiz was my great grandmother. I've heard stories over the years about her courage and strength of character (not mentioned in Ms. Bridge's version is the fact that she went on to bear John Goodfellow's eleven children)and it's a thrill to read about her in such an exciting book. The hardships of her mother's life, not simply endured but overcome by a deep need to provide a strong and proper upbringing for her children, are the most compelling theme of this story. Amazing!