Skiing into Leadership: Cultivating Modern Womanhood Through Extracurricular Life, Sport, and Service at the University of Alberta During the 1930s

The University of Alberta’s Varsity Ski Club (VSC) functioned as an outdoor, extracurricular training ground for university women to develop as leaders during the 1930s. The life stories of four women are reconstructed to examine how a nature-based extracurricular club at the University of Alberta (U of A) played a role in shaping their understanding of outdoor recreation and leadership, while preparing them for future roles as leaders in civic life after the Great Depression. The VSC is explored as a cultivating ground for female leaders who acted as agents of change in their own lives, contesting and accepting gender norms, during their time at the U of A and into later life. Situating the VSC within histories of women’s higher education and skiing in Western Canada, this article investigates how participation in a co-educational ski club offered women opportunities to negotiate gender norms and translate skills in administration, outdoor recreation, and service into careers and community leadership. The VSC was a key, yet largely unacknowledged, site where University of Alberta women cultivated a nuanced form of modern womanhood that combined professional ambition, family life, and lifelong engagement with outdoor sport and civic service.