I Think What Will Happen To Me
When my old body is finished and dies, I’m sure my spirit will come to a place like this:
A lovely woodsy trail, a beautiful lake, an alpine meadow, a ridge and a peak, for all this had been heaven to me while on earth. They are all God’s great gifts to man.
I will roam, at will, about the alpine meadows, along the happy rippling streams, the placid ponds and lakes that mirror the grand peaks and passing clouds. They will catch the early sunrise, with promise of the day, and later the glorious sunset, the last of light, then the night sky with bright stars and brilliant moon.
My spirit will wander about in the fields of flowers, revelling in their unspeakable beauty – it will pause to wonder at a rare treasure on some secluded spot. My spirit will also be tuned to all bird songs, and calls of little animals who make their homes in the mountains.
I will ramble high on the ridges where grotesque trees give way to heather and the highest flowers. Then I will join the fresh breezes, gain in strength, and rejoice in the rocks and snows of high places.
I will travel all over the glaciers – which I love so well – and the sparkling snow fields, the deep blue crevasses and shining seracs and the steep snow ridges and rock faces. And finally, with all the world at my feet, I will sit exulted on the summit, and just look, and look, and look, and love it, and thank my Maker for the supreme privilege my old body has enjoyed through the years.
My spirit belongs to all of the mountains – for this to me is heaven. Thank God who has made me like this. How privileged I have been, as Don and Edith shared these joys with me.
If I have been able to pass on, to even one other soul, the great joy and beauty God gave me in life, then I have been rewarded beyond measure.
Phyllis, Edith (aged four months) and Don Munday
at their campsite in the Selkirk Mountains.
View of Mount Waddington (left) and the Tiedemann Group from the summit of Mount Munday, 1930.
Chronology of Phyllis James Munday (1894–1990)
Compiled by Lynne Bowen
| PHYLLIS MUNDAY AND HER TIMES | CANADA AND THE WORLD |
|---|---|
| 1801 | |
| Alfred Pendrell Waddington (future British Columbia entrepreneur) is born in London, England. | |
| 1802 | |
| Ceylon becomes a British crown colony; successive governors will seize vast quantities of “waste” land in the central highlands for coffee and later tea and rubber plantations. | |
| 1849 | |
| Arthur Frank James (father) is born in England. | |
| 1857 | |
| Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (future founder of the Boy Scout movement) is born in London, England. | |
| 1858 | |
| Alfred Waddington emigrates to Victoria in the Colony of Vancouver Island and publishes the first B.C. book, The Fraser Mines Vindicated. | |
| 1862 | |
| Alfred Waddington chooses Bute Inlet as the starting point for a road into the Interior of British Columbia (B.C.) | |
| 1864 | |
| In B.C., in the so-called Chilcotin War, Tsilhqot’ in people, made uneasy by European activity in the wake of the Cariboo gold rush, kill fourteen road builders who were cutting Waddington’s road; troops are dispatched and five more Europeans are killed; six Tsilhqot’ in are hanged; the road is never built. | |
| 1870 | |
| Beatrice James (mother) is born in England. | |
| 1872 | |
| Alfred Waddington dies of smallpox in Ottawa, Ontario. | |
| 1883 | |
| Conrad Kain (future mountain guide) is born in Nasswald, Austria. The St. John Ambulance Association and The Brigade begin teaching first aid and caring for the injured in Canada. | |
| 1885 | |
| Completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) makes the mountains of the B.C. Interior accessible to climbers. | |
| 1886 | |
| Yoho National Park is established west of Lake Louise in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. | |
| 1890 | 1890 |
| Walter Alfred Don Munday (future husband) is born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. | Vancouver is the second Canadian city to install an urban electric streetcar system. |
| 1891 | |
| An interurban electric street railway is installed between Vancouver and New Westminster. | |
| 1894 | 1894 |
| Phyllis Beatrice James is born to Frank and Beatrice James on September 24 in the central hill country of Ceylon. | Amelia Bloomer, American social reformer and champion of women’s dress reform, dies in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Thompson dies at Windsor Castle in England. B.C.’s Fraser River floods and causes millions of dollars’ damage; diking of the river begins. |
| 1896 | 1896 |
| Esmée Mary “Betty” James (sister) is born. | In Toronto, George Sterling Ryerson organizes a Canadian Branch of the British Red Cross Society. |
| 1899 | |
| The Boer War begins in South Africa; Canada sends troops; the war divides French and English Canadians. In Canada, the CPR brings in Swiss mountain guides to promote tourism at its mountain hotels. | |
| 1900 | |
| Robert Baden-Powell is promoted to major-general after his 215-day defence of Mafeking, South Africa. The first regular ferry service across Burrard Inlet between Vancouver and North Vancouver begins. | |
| 1901 | 1901 |
| The James family leaves Ceylon and goes first to England, then Manitoba. | Queen Victoria dies and is succeeded by her son, King Edward VII. George Mercer Dawson, geologist and explorer, dies in Ottawa. |
| 1902 | 1902 |
| Frank Richard Ingram James (brother) is born in Sydney, Manitoba. | The Boer War ends with the Peace of Vereeniging. |
| 1903 | 1903 |
| The James family moves to the western shore of Kootenay Lake in eastern B.C. | The North Vancouver Ferry and Power Company takes over the Burrard Inlet ferry service and builds a second ship. |
| 1906 | |
| The Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) is founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba; unlike its British counterpart, the club permits women to join. | |
| 1907 | 1907 |
| The James family resides briefly at Slocan Lake in the Kootenays before deciding to emigrate to New Zealand; enroute they change their minds and decide to settle in Vancouver. | The ACC begins to publish the Canadian Alpine Journal, an annual publication. The B.C. Mountaineering Club (BCMC) is founded; six climbers climb Mount Garibaldi. |
| 1908 | |
| In Britain, Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys is published in six parts and sells for four pence a copy; the scouting movement arrives in Canada in the spring. | |
| 1909 | |
| In Britain, the Girl Guide movement is founded by Baden-Powell’s sister, Agnes. The ACC hires Conrad Kain to be its first official guide in the Rocky Mountains. | |
| 1910 | |
| Phyllis James begs the scoutmaster of a newly formed Boy Scout troop at St. James Church in Vancouver to allow a troop for girls too; she recruits her sister and seven other girls and appoints herself Acting Patrol Leader. After several months Phyllis learns about Girl Guides and the existence of a company in Vancouver; she and her scouts form the 2nd Vancouver Company of Girl Guides. As the oldest girl in her company, Phyllis takes her company to Bowen Island for their first camping trip. | 1910 Baden-Powell writes to Canada’s Governor General, Earl Grey, and asks him to organize Boy Scouts in Canada; the Girl Guide movement follows. In Canada, the National Council of Women
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