These aren't the women who built the west.
Not nurses or teachers or crusaders for women's
rights, they rarely show up in history books.
They are a different breed of women.
Adventurous and rebellious, they strayed outside
the permitted and undertook the unexpected.
Most of the women who came to the west coast of Canada between the time of the gold rush and the 1940s settled in Vancouver or Victoria, or in the growing towns in the interior valleys. Out beyond the cities, a different world existed. Imaginative, determined, often raucous and sometimes raunchy, women in the wilds did what they wanted to do.
They ran traplines, hotels and bawdy houses, prospected for gold, lived in the wilderness, and married as many times as they wanted or not at all.
In this new edition, complete with a new foreword, Rosemary Neering tells the stories of the strength, independence and sheer determination of women such as Lillian Alling, who tried to walk home to Russia; and Evelyn Penrose, who divined for water, oil and criminal tendencies. Madam, prospector, writer, each of these amazing individuals lived a life that challenged the rules most women lived by.

Rosemary Neering is a Victoria-based writer, editor, and photographer. She has published numerous articles in noted periodicals such as British Columbia Magazine, Canada's History Magazine, and Western Living. Rosemary also has over 40 book-length publications to her name, including A Traveller's Guide to Historic British Columbia and Down the Road. Her most recent publications include The Pig War: The Last Canada-US Border Conflict and British Columbia Bizarre: A Compendium of Facts, Stories, Whimsies and a Few Outright Lies from Canada's Wacky West Coast. When Rosemary isn`t travelling throughout BC looking for new stories, she enjoys time at home with her partner, Joe, and her cat.

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