Summer 2007 - The Alpine Club of Canada
Summer 2007 - The Alpine Club of Canada
Summer 2007 - The Alpine Club of Canada
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Munday biography brings history alive in readers’ hands<br />
BY RON DART<br />
Don Munday has been called<br />
the elder and dean <strong>of</strong> British<br />
Columbia mountaineering,<br />
and Phyllis Munday has been called the<br />
grand lady <strong>of</strong> the ancient spires and white<br />
capped diadems. It is rather uncanny that<br />
a biography had not yet been written on<br />
the lives <strong>of</strong> Don and Phyllis Munday,<br />
but now Kathryn Bridge has fi lled the<br />
gap in a most readable, meticulous and<br />
accessible manner.<br />
Bridge carried out her sleuth work<br />
well in her 2002 Phyllis Munday:<br />
Mountaineer, an informative teaser and<br />
primer on the life <strong>of</strong> Phyllis Munday.<br />
Th ere was much missing in this earlier<br />
telling <strong>of</strong> the tale <strong>of</strong> Munday’s life, and<br />
the curious and keen reader could not<br />
help but yearn for more to slake the<br />
thirst <strong>of</strong> the mountaineering palette. A<br />
Passion <strong>of</strong> Mountains:Th e Lives <strong>of</strong> Don and<br />
Phyllis Munday <strong>of</strong>f ers a full course and<br />
much more on this pioneering couple <strong>of</strong><br />
mountaineering lore and legend.<br />
A Passion for Mountains has a most<br />
alluring and appealing cover, and the<br />
many photographs in the missive cannot<br />
but hold and delight the attentive reader.<br />
Many a page tells the tale well, in a visual<br />
way, <strong>of</strong> the climbing ethos and life <strong>of</strong><br />
Don and Phyllis Munday. Th e written<br />
text fi ts hand and glove with the fi ne<br />
photographs. Bridge quotes amply from<br />
the varied writings <strong>of</strong> the Mundays,<br />
and she threads her interpretive text<br />
judiciously through the fabric <strong>of</strong> the<br />
photographs and primary material.<br />
A Passion for Mountains tracks the<br />
life <strong>of</strong> Don and Phyllis Munday in a<br />
chronological way, from their early years<br />
apart, their meeting, their many climbs<br />
and their parting with Don’s early death<br />
in 1950. Each chapter’s title acts as a well<br />
30<br />
MOUNTAIN<br />
years<br />
EXPERTISE<br />
built cairn for the reader, pointing the<br />
way further along the trail: 1) Early Years<br />
and the BC Mountaineering <strong>Club</strong>, 2)<br />
Wartime, 3) Recovery and Discovery, 4)<br />
Climbing on the Coast, 5) Th e <strong>Alpine</strong><br />
<strong>Club</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Canada</strong>, 6) Mystery Mountain<br />
Years, 7) Icefi elds and Mountains, and 8)<br />
Later Years. Th e evocative prose poems<br />
by Phyllis: I Th ink What Will Happen To<br />
Me, Th e Legacy and List Of Ascents winds<br />
down the few fi nal pages <strong>of</strong> this well<br />
crafted book.<br />
Th ere is no doubt that A Passion for<br />
Mountains is a much more mature and<br />
integrated book than Phyllis Munday:<br />
Mountaineer. Bridge deserves many an<br />
accolade for her hard archivist work and<br />
visually pleasing text. Don and Phyllis<br />
Munday would be more than honoured<br />
by the attention Bridge has lavished on<br />
them.<br />
A Passion for Mountains is a keeper<br />
and must read for those interested in the<br />
early years <strong>of</strong> mountaineering in BC and<br />
Alberta, and the early years <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Alpine</strong><br />
<strong>Club</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Canada</strong>. Phyllis Munday was the<br />
fi rst woman to climb Mount Robson, and<br />
it was the Mundays who scouted out the<br />
approaches to the highest mountain in<br />
BC, Mount Waddington. Do delight in<br />
the text. History will come alive in your<br />
hands.<br />
A Passion <strong>of</strong> Mountains:Th e Lives <strong>of</strong><br />
Don and Phyllis Munday is published by<br />
Rocky Mountain Books, a division <strong>of</strong><br />
Heritage House.<br />
photo: N. Rapaich<br />
<strong>Alpine</strong> <strong>Club</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Canada</strong> ● Gazette ● SUMMER <strong>2007</strong> 9