Pictures In History

Schaffer with Nibs. Source: (Wikipedia).

At a time when women did not normally explore the backcountry, Mary Schäffer did. During her explorations, she became one of the first white people, and most likely the first white woman to see Lake Maligne in what is now Jasper National Park.

Getting Her Start

Mary Schäffer was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1861, and studied flower painting. In 1889, She made her first visit to the Canadian Rockies with another art student, Mary Vaux. While traveling, she met Dr. Charles Schäffer at Glacier House, the Canadian Pacific Railways hotel in the Selkirk Mountains. The medical doctor from Philadelphia was an amateur botanist. The pair married in 1890, and they spent summers and autumns in the Canadian Rockies and winters in Philadelphia. In 1903, When Schäffer was 42, her husband died, and she set out to complete the book he was working on which was a botanical guide. To do so, she learned photography, and she returned to the Canadian Rockies in 1904 with her friend Mollie Adams, a geology teacher from Columbia College; she also collected specimens for the University of Pennsylvania. The completed book, Alpine Flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains was published in 1907, with text by Stewardson Brown and photographs and illustrations by Schäffer.

Samson Beaver and his family. Source: (Wikipedia).

Looking For Chaba Imne

Once the project was finished, she decided to explore more of the mountains and embark on more serious backcountry excursions. She convinced William “Billy” Warren and Sidney Unwin, two mountain guides, to provide her and Adams with what they needed to find “Chaba Imne” also known as Maligne Lake. Schäffer had first heard of the lake, which was in an unexplored mountain valley, from the Iyarhe Nakoda (or Stoney First Nations).

She had developed friendships with the Nakoda people during her time exploring the Rockies; one family she befriended was Sampson Beaver, along with his wife Leah, and daughter Frances Louise. Sampson provided Schäffer with the hand-drawn map that would lead her to Maligne Lake. In 1908, Schäffer and her travel companions prepared for six months of backcountry travel. They had to find routes through thick forests and over mountain passes.

"One of our summer homes" with Schaffer, Adams, Billy Warren, and Joe Barker. Source: (Wikimedia).

The Sight Of The Lake

As they came close to the lake and began to debate whether they should give up the search and turn back, a member of the group hiked for eight hours to reach the top of a mountain. He returned with news that the lake was close, and so they continued the expedition until Schäffer first saw the lake. As she explained: “Lake Louise is a pearl, Lake Maligne is a whole string of pearls.”

A few days after this first sight of Lake Maligne, she was floating on a hand-crafted raft and observed “the finest view any of us had ever beheld in the Rockies. This was a tremendous assertion, for of that band of six of us, we all knew many valleys in that country, and each counted his miles of travel through them by the thousands.”

Her Later Survey

In 1911, when Schäffer was 49, the Geological Survey of Canada asked her to survey the lake and the surrounding area. She did not have much experience with surveying and first had a false start; this was followed by another setback when she lost the surveying spool overboard. She had to wait for nearly a month for a new spool to arrive. Throughout the expedition, she took photos, which she hand-colored once she returned home. After months of backcountry travel, she finally finished an accurate survey; once the survey was done, she sent her measurements and the map which included the names she had given to the features around the lake, including the name of the lake itself, which she suggested be named from the river that flowed into it. Her legacy continues not only in the names of the features around the lake but in its preservation in Jasper, as she lobbied to include Maligne Lake in the National Park.

After the expedition, Schäffer wrote Old Indian Trails of the Canadian Rockies, which included Beaver’s hand-drawn map. In 1912, Schäffer moved to Banff and married her friend and guide Billy Warren three years later. She died in Banff in 1939.

Mary Schäffer Warren: The Female Explorer In The Canadian Rockies

Getting Her Start

Looking For Chaba Imne

The Sight Of The Lake

Her Later Survey