South Peace Historical Society

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  • Table of Contents

    • Part 1: First Nations of the Peace River Region
    • Part 2: The Fur Trade Era
    • Part 3: Transportation and Communication
    • Part 4: Old Timers and the Price of Land
    • Part 5: Dawson Creek: The Story of the Community
    • Part 6: Mysteries, Adventures and Indian Legends
    • Part 7: Arts, Crafts and Recreation
    • Part 8: Agriculture
    • Part 9: Church Histories
    • Part 10: Schools
    • Part 11: Health Care
    • Part 12: Industries and Enterprises
    • Part 13: Policing the Peace
    • Part 14: Pouce Coupe, Rolla, and Other South Peace Communities
    • Part 15: Chetwynd and the Fort St. John Area
    • Part 16: The Alberta Peace
    • Part 17: Natural History of the Peace River Region
    • Part 18: Interviews with Old Timers
    • Part 19: Remembering Our Veterans

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03-042: Mary Gibson Henry – The Spunky Little Lady Who Showed the Alaska Highway Where to go

By Dorthea Calverley 
Exploring expeditions were no novelty in the Upper Peace region before the early 1930’s. There were two extraordinary ones in quick succession. The most spectacular was the comic-opera Bedeaux effort in 1934 which set off with much fanfare, headed for Telegraph Creek. But, bedeviled by bad luck and bad management, it abandoned its expensive vehicles and floundered back on horses, a dismal failure. Laughing at this fiasco, most people had already forgotten the remarkable 1931 “hunting” expedition through the mountains between the Halfway River’s confluence with the Peace to the fabled Liard Hot Springs.

The ‘Women’s Lib’ movement was not around then to publicize the fact that the leader of this huge party was a woman! A tiny, gray-haired lady, she was the mother of five adolescent children, but old enough to be a grandmother. She was gentle Quaker lady, of great charm but absolutely indomitable will. She was also a crack shot with a rifle or revolver and a superb horsewoman. She climbed mountains when she was resting, and o brought back hundreds of trophies, living and dead, for American and British Museums. What was she hunting? Perhaps the answer comes as an anticlimax — FLOWERS. Mary Gibson Henry was a dedicated amateur botanist.

In 1935 the Bedeaux expedition had come and gone and the stories of the hardships of the country had been publicized all over the world. Mary Henry was back to lead a third expedition. This time she went all the way from railhead at Dawson Creek to the coast of Alaska. She did not follow the old Mounted Police trail because it was set up to lay out a cart road, going around the difficulties. Her choice was deliberately trail-blazing by pack horse with speed in mind, taking the hazards as they came — through muskegs and valleys and as far as possible up mountains which she could then climb on foot. “We were advised”, she writes “not to take such a perilous journey, but the more difficulties that arose, the more we wanted to go.” Why? Because (1) in places untouched by man she might find never-before discovered plant species. And (2) She was Mary Gibson Henry!

Her contribution to history was not the rare and “record” plants she did find but in a totally unexpected spin-off — her contribution was in the choice of route seven years later for the world’s greatest military road, the Alaska Highway.

« 03-041: Pack or “Pitching” Trails

03-043: Further Explorations by Mary Gibson Henry »

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