Canadian heroines

She Dared: True Stories of Heroines, Scoundrels, and Renegades
by Ed Butts
illustrated by Heather Collins


From the introduction:  

This volume presents the stories of 15 women of Canada who dared in some way to challenge their societies. They ventured into areas previously considered off-limits to females - medicine, publishing, the military. They survived harrowing ordeals and courted forbidden romance. Some were Canadian born; others came to Canada from elsewhere. They emerged from different backgrounds, but their common bond was daring to step off the narrow path of custom. They did so at the risk of stirring up public anger, creating scandal, estranging their families, even breaking the law. Some did it for personal, even self-centred reasons. Others were motivated by ideals of social justice. All are part of history.


 The women profiled are:

• Marguerite de la Roque de Roberval: marooned 2 yrs 5 mos on an uninhabited island 
• Thanadelthur: Chipewyan woman who brokered peace between Chipewyans and Crees
• Molly Brant: Mohawk woman who successfully straddled both Native and British worlds
• Dr. James Miranda Barry (aka Margaret Bulkley): army surgeon
• Mary Ann Shadd: Freedom Fighter and newspaper publisher
• Sarah Emma Edmonds: Civil War nurse, soldier, and spy
• Pearl Hart: Ontario's Bandit Queen, last person and only woman to have robbed a stagecoach 
• Cassie Chadwick: con woman
• Martha Black: first lady of the Yukon
• Mina Hubbard: explorer of uncharted Labrador
• Florence Lassandro: mobster princess during prohibition
• Women Pilots of World War II (Marion Orr, Violet Milstead, Helen Harrison, Elspeth Russell)