Janice Sanford Beck

This book is a biography of one of the most important explorers of the Canadian Rockies. The explorer documented and painted the area's first book on the flora of the region and got it ublished as a scientific reference. She later documented and mapped the passages up the valleys and over the passes of the region. Under contract by the Canadian pacific Railway, she returned to the area to map out a large lake she had discovered, with help from a local Indian, Sampson Beaver, years previously.

Beacuse the explorer, Mary Schaffer Warren did not write much other than her botany text and a single book of her travels, Old Indian Trails, the author of this biography had to interview living friends of the explorer to fill in Mrs. Warren's life. Because much of the book is based on these interviews, the book comes across as third person, not as interesting if the author could have talked to Mrs. Warren personally. But the book is still really good at pinning down the chronology of Mrs. Warren's activities and the changes in the direction of her lifestyles.… (meer)