Unsettled Pasts

Unsettled Pasts
Edited by Sarah Carter et al
University of Calgary Press
ISBN: 1-55238-177-3
Non-Fiction, History
Reviewed by Dr. Tami Brady

Over the years, I have read many western Canadian historical records from a variety of sources including all sorts of letters and other written material gathered from traders, missionaries, and Mounties. Like most such accounts worldwide, women are rarely mentioned. Moreover, those women who are noted tend to fit very narrow stereotypes, usually in the roles of nurturer and wife. Perhaps it is this lack of research to the contrary that makes people assume that women really didn’t have much influence, apart from raising children and managing the household (not small contributions either), on creating the west that now exists.

Unsettled Pasts seeks to reveal a small portion of the contribution of women in this early history from names that I had heard of such as Sara Riel (Louis Riel’s sister) and Henrietta Muir Edwards (one of Alberta’s Famous Five) to those women who were previously only known by those individuals who loved and respected them. I found both the behind the story details of the well known women and the important contributions of those lesser know individuals (particularly that of the female missionary and the nurse) astonishing and thought provoking.

Although this book could be easily used as a university text, I didn’t find the work dry or boring in the least. I felt that I learned something new in each of the articles, something that was equally interesting to my family and friends when I recounted what I had just read. Not only do I feel like I have a greater understanding of the variety of different roles of women in these times but I have even more respect for how they paved the way for me and my contemporaries.