Famous Canadian Women (Challenge Kit)

To Earn This Patch

• Sparks (5-6 years) need to complete 2 requirements from the list
• Embers (7-8 years) need to complete 3 requirements from the list
• Guides (9-11 years) need to complete 4 requirements from the list
• Pathfinder (12-14 years) need to complete 6 requirements from the list
• Rangers (14-17 years) need to complete 6 requirements from the list

Famous Canadian Women Patch

1. Discover three Canadian women throughout history who have impacted our country.
2. Think, do you look up to one of the famous Canadian women the most? Who and why?
3. Take a group bike ride.
4. Go to a rock climbing wall.
5. Write a Fill-a-Blank and act it out as a group.
6. Discover the history of women in Canadian politics by learning about all of the women in the politically leading ladies category. Complete all the activities about these women.
7. Make one of the recipes, other than Beef Jerky, from the Recipe section.
8. Play a game from the activities section.
9. Complete the Jets Relay Race.
10. Solve one puzzle from the Puzzle Section.
11. Test your knowledge of famous Canadian women by completing the Pieces Of Herstory activity.
12. Test your knowledge of famous Canadian women by playing the We Are Iconic game.
13. In groups of 5, pretend that each member is one of the Famous Five and share one interesting fact about each woman.
14. Complete a craft from the craft section.
15. Make a Mountain Climber Snow Globe.
16. Choose two games from the Activity list and play them as a group.
17. Make Beef Jerky.
18. Choose a famous Canadian woman to dress up as and have a Famous Canadian Women Picnic.
19. Are there any other famous Canadian women that you look up to who are not mentioned in this Challenge Kit? Tell the group about them.
20. Think, what are your own interests and talents? What do you hope to one day be a famous Canadian woman for? Draw a picture of your future self and explain it to the group.

Celia Franca

Celia Franca always wanted to be a dancer. Her father was a Jewish tailor who discouraged her passion, claiming there was no money in dancing. At the young age of fourteen years old, Celia Franca took a job dancing in a chorus line. What she did not know is that this humble beginning would lead her to become a cultural
icon.

In 1950, a group of ballet enthusiasts wanted to establish a professional company in Toronto. They offered 29-year-old Celia the position based on her talent, vision, and reputation for being a tough leader. With her talent and the enthusiasts’ vision, they created the National Ballet of Canada.

The first year was one of struggles. She found financial support for the company through Eaton’s, worked as a director and as a files clerk, and searched for talent. One year after its establishment, the National Ballet of Canada put on its first show. For this show, ballet dancers from across Canada and across the world came together on the stage.

To ensure that she had access to the best dancers she could, Celia Franca teamed up with Betty Oliphant, a Canadian ballet dancer, to found the National Ballet School. Training for ballet is no simple feat; dancers will suffer more injuries than hockey and football players, train harder than most professional athletes, and practice very disciplined personal and professional lifestyles. Dancers in training, including Karen Kain, a retired dancer and the current Artist Director of the National Ballet of Canada, were known to hide in bathrooms and empty rooms to escape Celia’s rigorous training.

Celia retired in 1974. She believed that her endurance and powers were what led the National Ballet of Canada to its success. The National Ballet of Canada is still a fully functioning foundation. The 2012/2013 season has nine featured shows, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the classic Nutcracker.

Urszula Tokarska was born in Slupsk, Poland. She immigrated to Canada in 1988. Five years later, in 1993, she finally became a Canadian citizen. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ontario College of Arts. Not only did she receive a Canadian education, she has also obtained a Fine Arts background in her native tongue. In her hometown of Gdansk, Poland, she attended the Academy of Fine Arts. There, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Urszula Tokarska took her love of art and design and turned it into a successful career in interior design. She is a member of the Interior Designers of Ontario, Interior Designers of Canada, and the American Society for Interior Designers. While her career expresses her creative side, her pastime shows her athletic side.

Urszula is a mountain climber. Her love of the sport gave her fame when she took on the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest. At a whopping 8,848 meters tall, few people have stood on the peak.

The first time she took on Everest, Urszula and her team met a storm. Though they tried to stick out the snow and frigid winds, they were eventually forced off the mountain. Undeterred, Urszula had a mission. A few months after her first attempt, she braved the elements and set toward the top of the world. This time, she succeeded.

Urszula is the third woman in Canadian history to climb Mount Everest. But her ascent meant more than that: it also sealed her place in history as the first Canadian woman to climb the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. She accomplished this in a mere four years:

• In 2001, she climbed South America’s Aconcagua (6,962m).
• In 2002, she climbed Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895m).
• In 2002, she climbed Europe’s Mount Elbrus (5,642m).
• In 2004, she climbed Antarctica’s Mount Vinson Massif (4,892m).
• In 2004, she climbed North America’s Mount Denali (6,194m).
• In 2004, she climbed Australia’s Mount Kosciuszko (2,228m).
• In 2005, she climbed Asia’s Mount Everest (8,848m).

Ethel Stark

Violinist Ethel Stark was born on August 25, 1916, in Montreal, Quebec. She studied the violin with some of Canada’s most successful musicians, including Alfred De Sève and Saul Brant. Her first introduction to professionalism was at the McGill Conservatory after she won the MacDonald scholarship. From 1928 to 1934, she studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia to further expand her expertise.

During her final year at the Curtis Institute, she became the first Canadian woman to play as a soloist in a radio program that was broadcast across Canada and the United States. She played Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra under the famous conductor Fritz Reiner. She performed with many other orchestras throughout her career, though her work with the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra best reflects her influence in music. When Ethel Stark founded the organization in 1940, it became the first Canadian orchestra comprised entirely of women. She conducted the orchestra until the 1960s.

Wanting to share her love and knowledge of music, Stark also taught. From 1952 to 1963, she taught at the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec à Montréal; from 1974 to 1975, she also taught at Concordia University.

Ethel Stark was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1979 and the Order of Québec in 2003. In 1992, she also received the Canada 125 medal, an award commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Confederation of Canada.

Joyce Wieland was born on June 30, 1931. She was a filmmaker and artist whose artwork pushed boundaries during the feminist movement of the 1960s. Unlike other artists, she did not limit herself to one mode; in addition to films, she produced quilts, paintings done with various mediums, and photographs.

Unlike other artists who showed their love of their country through heavy patriotic imagery, Joyce Wieland took a more subtle approach. Using abstract images, she painted a picture of Canadian politics, Canadian landscapes, and Canadian women. Most of her work was considered to be autobiographical.

Though she had participated in several exhibits, Joyce Wieland found her way to fame in 1960 when she was featured in her first solo exhibit. It was held at the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto.

At the height of her career, she became the first Canadian female artist to see her work featured in a solo showcase at the National Gallery of Canada. The showcase, called “True Patriot Love,” was opened on July 1, 1971. The attention that she received as a result of “True Patriot Love” led her to be commissioned by the Canada Post Office to design a stamp for World Health. She passed away in 1998. She is still considered to be one of the most influential Canadian artists because her early work pushed so many boundaries and inspired so many other artists, male and female, to follow in her footsteps.

Roberta Bondar

Roberta Bondar has a rather unique list of accomplishments. To start, she has an impressive educational background: she holds a Bachelor of zoology and agriculture from the University of Guelph (1968), a Master of Science in Experimental Pathology from the University of Western Ontario (1971), a Ph.D in neuroscience from the University of Toronto (1974), and a Medical Degree from McMaster University (1977). Her schooling is what allowed her to become a part of Canadian history.

Roberta Bondar is best known for being the first Canadian woman in Space and the second woman overall. When she went into orbit in 1922, she became the second Canadian to leave the planet. This accomplishment also made her the first Girl Guide and the first neuroscientist on Earth to make the journey as well. Her training for her 1992 flight began in 1984. When she prepared for her flight, she was given the chance to bring one item into orbit with her. She chose her favourite food: Girl Guide Cookies!

When she landed back on Earth eight days later, her life remained anything but ordinary. She led a team of NASA researchers for more than ten years. Her team examined data from other astronauts to better understand how exposure in space affects the human body. She was the Chair of the Working Group on Environmental Education for Ontario. Her work as Chair led to all 32 of her suggestions being implemented in elementary and secondary schools.

She is the author of four photo essay books: Landscape of Dreams (2006), Passionate Vision (2008), The Arid Edge of the Earth (2006), and Touching the Earth (2002). These books feature her original photography of Canadian landscapes, pieces of nature, and photographs taken while in orbit.

Roberta Bondar has received many awards and honours throughout her career. Of these, the most honourable was her induction into the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, the NASA Space Medal, and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.

It is said that at the tender age of five, Jennie (nee) Smillie knew how she would spend her life. The year was 1883—a time when women’s careers were nearly exclusively limited to wives, mothers, and school teachers. She had set her heart on being a doctor, specifically a surgeon.

In 1898, at the age of 18, Jennie taught in a one-room schoolhouse to save money for medical school. It would take her five years to save enough to attend Ontario Medical College for Women, which merged with the University of Toronto’s Medical School the next year. She graduated in 1909.

At the time, there was significant hostility from the medical world toward women. There was so much that she had to go to Philadelphia to intern. She returned a few years later when she was unable to find a man willing to train her to be a surgeon. When she returned to Canada and trained in surgery, she was still denied the proper medical facilities she needed. Jennie Smillie performed her first operation, and the first operation done by a Canadian female was performed on the patient’s kitchen table. It was the removal of an ovarian tumour.

Jennie Smillie was not the only woman trying to earn a medical education. She knew this and wanted to make sure they had access to adequate training facilities so they wouldn’t have to struggle like she had. She moved toward that goal and played a vital role in the founding of the Women’s College Hospital in Toronto in 1911.

Dr. Jennie Smillie did not become Dr. Jennie Robertson until the age of 70 years old. In her autobiography, she claimed, “I first met the man I was to marry many years later in 1898, while I was teaching school. A that time I was planning for medicine, not marriage, and I didn’t think I could have both.”

Helen Sawyer spent her life looking at the stars. She studied at Mount Holyoke College, where she received a graduate degree in Astronomy. Afterward, she went to Harvard Observatory, where she began working with star clusters. In 1931, she earned her doctorate from Radcliff College, a huge accomplishment for any woman at that time.

She married Frank Scott Hogg in 1930. After living a few years in Victoria, British Colombia, the couple moved to Ontario, where Helen Sawyer Hogg took a job at the David Dunlap Observatory. While there, she studied and researched stars whose spectra contain absorption lines and telltale signs of radiation.

Through a series of research papers and articles, Helen Sawyer Hogg became an established member of Canada’s astronomy community. She was best known for her weekly column in the Toronto Star, which was published from 1951 to 1981.

She won the Annie J Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1949, an award given to a woman who is distinguished in astronomy or related science with immediate astronomical applications within five years of earning her PHD! She also received the Klumpke-Roberts Award in 1983. This award commemorates outstanding contributions to public understanding of astronomy. She was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1976.

The astronomy community solidified her accomplishments by naming Minor Planet 2917 Sawyer Hogg.

Nellie McClung fought in the name of women everywhere. Her actions helped Manitoba become Canada’s first province where women had the right to vote. Alberta and Saskatchewan followed soon after. In 1921, Nellie McClung became a Liberal MLA for Edmonton. She held the position until 1926. She found herself working with Irene Parlby, another member of the Famous Five, quite often when she was in office.

Later in her career, she became the first female Director of the Board of Governors of the Canadian Broadcast Channel. She was held in such high esteem that she was chosen to be a delegate to the League of Nations, an earlier version of the United Nations, in Geneva in 1938.

Henrietta Muir Edwards started her career as a legal expert on the issues facing women and children. It was this work that led her to founded the National Council of Women of Canada In 1893; the organization is still working to improve the quality of life for Canadian women today. She was a leader for women in more than one way— she also helped found the original prototype of the YWCA.

These attitudes were not enough for Henrietta Muir Edwards. She took her vision of women one step further when she published the first Canadian magazine targeted at women.

Aside from the Famous Five, Irene Parlby’s main advancement for the rights of women was when she founded the United Farm Women’s Association in 1916. She was a firm advocate for rural working women, especially after her marriage to a farmer from Western Canada.

Irene was not a passionate politician. She was reluctant, though she did not disappoint when she was elected into the Alberta Legislature in 1921, as with the United Farmers of Alberta party. This made her Alberta’s first female cabinet minister and the second in the history of the British Empire.

Emily Murphy was the driving force behind the Person’s Case, but her efforts for women’s rights go much further. In 1911, thanks in part to her efforts, Alberta passed the Married Women’s Protective Act, which stated that wives shared their husbands’ property rights. This means that they would not be left homeless and broke in light of an untimely death.

In 1916, she became the British Empire’s first female magistrate. Emily Murphy won a great deal of respect through her activism and efforts to improve the welfare of women and children. When the nation started to call for her to be appointed to the Senate, she launched the Person’s Case for the rights of all women. She was never appointed to the Senate.

Cairine Wilson was Canada’s first female senator. She accomplished this four short months after the Famous Five’s petition was passed by the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. She was 45 when she was appointed on February 45, 1930, by the government of Prime Minister William Mackenzie King. Before she was appointed to office, Cairine Wilson founded the Ottawa Women’s Club. She also served as president for three years.

While she was in office, she rallied for women's and children’s rights. She had also built a reputation for supporting refugees; she fought against the government to bring 100 Jewish orphans out of Nazi Germany and into Canada. Because of this act, she was given the Cross of the Knight of the Legion of Honor, one of the highest awards in France.

Her dedication to serving the United Nations led to her being appointed president of the League of Nations Society in Canada. She was the first woman to hold this position as well. Her honours continued when, in 1949, she became the first Canadian woman to act as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.

Rose Fortune

The story of this woman starts on March 13, 1774, when Rose Fortune was born. She was an African American who was sold into slavery in the colony of Virginia. When Rose was 10 years old, her family escaped slavery by moving to Nova Scotia during the Black Loyalist Movement during the American Revolution. Her family chose to stay in the town of Annapolis Royal.

Annapolis Royal would be Rose’s home for the rest of her life.

In 1825, at the age of 51, Rose started her own company, lugging bags from the ferry docks to nearby residences. She did this for several years. Her line of work led her to protect the cargo she was moving; she would chase kids away from the crates to make sure the contents made it ashore. Protecting cargo was not her job, but she did it willingly to keep her company in good image.

Soon, the other citizens of Annapolis Royal entrusted her with safeguarding their property and maintaining the wharves and warehouses on the waterfront. This work led her to become the town’s waterfront police officer, effectively making her Canada’s first female police officer.

Daurene E. Lewis, Rose Fortune’s great, great-granddaughter, also led a life that changed the status of African Americans in Canada. She was born in Annapolis Royal, where she lived most of her life.

Daurene Lewis worked as a Registered Nurse, holding her degree from Dalhousie University. She also earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Saint Mary’s University and was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Mount Saint Vincent University. At the time, this was a major accomplishment for a coloured Canadian; African Americans were still fighting very actively for their rights.

What made her significant to Canadian culture goes much further than her education. Lewis was elected mayor of Annapolis Royal in 1984, making her Canada’s first black mayor. In the 1988 provincial election, Daurene Lewis made an attempt to run for the Nova Scotia House of Assembly representing the Liberal party. Though she was not elected, she secured her place in history as the first black woman to run in a provincial election.

Doris Anderson was born in Calgary, Alberta. She became the voice of a generation when she became the editor of Chatelaine Women’s magazine in 1957. This position alone set her apart from the other women of her generation, but she was not happy sitting silently and producing stories that emphasized the etiquette-heavy lifestyle that smothered so many women. She insisted that the magazine would be published with the average woman in mind; the recipes became practical, featured clothing became affordable, and money-saving tricks, like furniture refurbishing, became encouraged. Her editorial column spoke about many controversial women’s issues, such as affordable daycares and birth control. She gave the average woman a voice.

In order to separate Chatelaine from the competition, including the American publications with much higher budgets, Doris Anderson kept as much of the content Canadian as she could. She featured Canadian artists, Canadian vacation spots, Canadian merchandisers, and Canadian advertisers. Her audience loved the patriotic tone.

While she was editor, one in three women read Chatelaine each month—this record has not been matched by any other magazine. Because of the magazine’s influence, other women’s magazines followed the newly paved path to keep their readers from switching to Chatelaine. She changed the way women’s magazines interpreted women.

In 1979, after her time at Chatelaine, Doris Anderson went on to be the chair of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (CACSW), a government leg that was established during the feminist revolution. She worked toward the inclusion of Section 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states:

“Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.”

This guarantees that women are equal under the interpretation of the law and that a woman cannot be discriminated against because of her gender.

Deanne Brasseur always knew that she would spread her wings and fly. She is a self-professed Air Force brat who grew up in a military household. In her childhood, she moved across North America with her family.

Her military career started in 1972 when she got a job as a typist in a military dental office. Though her fingers were stuck to a keyboard, her eyes were always stuck on the sky. In 1979, she got involved with flight training. When she completed her aviation training in 1981, she became one of three women in Canadian history to earn her wings.

But that was not enough for Deanna Brasseur. Though this was an accomplishment that the entire country recognized, it was not quite what she wanted. She carried on with her training, moving on to fighter jets. In 1988, she earned her license to fly the world-class.

CF-18 fighter jet, making her the first woman in the world to do so. Only the top ten percent of all pilots become fighter jet pilots.

She retired from the Canadian Air Force with 2,500 hours of flying experience. She moved on to become a motivational speaker on women’s rights in the military, specifically focusing on sexual abuse. In 1999, she became a Member of the Order of Canada.