By Peter Shokeir, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A new short documentary retraces the steps of Mary Schäffer Warren’s 1908 expedition to Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park through the eyes of modern day mountain writer Meghan J. Ward.
Wildflowers premiered at the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival on Saturday Nov. 2nd. It will also be playing at the Kendal Mountain Festival in the United Kingdom and Transylvania Mountain Festival.
“I really believe there’s something in this film for everyone, even if you don’t have a relationship with the outdoors, even if you don’t love history,” Ward said. “I think what Wildflowers does is it brings history to life in a really new way, in a refreshing way, and it really encourages people to explore their wilder spirits, especially in this high-speed, chaotic world.”
First moving to Banff National Park in 2001, Ward instantly fell in love with the mountains and outdoors. It didn’t take long for her to hear the name Mary Schäffer Warren, or simply Mary Schäffer.
Schäffer is best known for being the first non-Indigenous person to explore Maligne Lake. She was 43 years old and recently widowed when she bucked Victorian-era conventions and reinvented herself as a mountain explorer, writer and photographer.
“She was truly remarkable and accomplished a lot of things in a time when women just weren’t really encouraged to do those things, and I think she really leaves a mark on people,” Ward said.
Having been intrigued by Schäffer’s story for some time, Ward was more than interested when her friend Trixie Pacis, an up-and-coming filmmaker, told her she had an idea for a film about this explorer.
“It felt so much was coming full circle for me as I looked at my own life as a mountain writer and reflected on Mary’s journey also as a mountain writer,” Ward said.
Pacis was lucky enough to get two films into the Banff Film Festival this year, including Wildflowers and her other short documentary, Wild Aerial. These are her first films that she has directed.
Having grown up in Vancouver, Pacis had not spent any time in the Rockies until she and her husband moved to Kimberley, B.C. in 2020. As she became more acquainted with the mountains, her interest in the history of this area grew, as did her interest in figures such as Schäffer.
“For me, coming from the outside of the Rockies and coming in, I saw a story that not a lot of people had heard of beyond the Rockies and really wanted to bring that story to a wider audience,” she said.
To better understand Schäffer’s motivations, Ward embarked on a journey of archival research and backcountry adventures. She invited photographer Natalie Gillis and travel writer Jane Marshall on a six-day hiking and paddling journey to retrace the final leg of Schäffer’s expedition to Maligne Lake.
Filming lasted for about three years starting early 2021, with the Maligne trip taking place in late August 2023.
As someone turning 40 years old and with children growing up, Ward initially approached Schäffer’s story for inspiration on how someone can reinvent themselves later in life.
Through the filmmaking process, however, other themes emerged. Ward noted how Schäffer’s lifespan overlapped with the colonial influences in the Rockies and its legacy, which included the forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their land. She noted Schäffer often used derogatory language about Indigenous people in her writings that wouldn’t be used today.
“As much as Mary was really ahead of her times, she was also a product of her times, and in the film, we explore how we all have the potential to be a product of our times, unless we work towards doing things differently,” she said. “She was an activist at heart, but not on those issues.”
During the six-day hike to Maligne Lake, Ward was able to read segments from Schäffer’s book to the crew as they were walking. She also worked with Gillis to take repeat photographs of sites that Schäffer had photographed.
“We’re in a fairly remote part of present-day Jasper National Park, and in Mary’s photograph, there are teepee poles, and when we were, there’s, of course, no teepee poles and nothing but chest-high willow shrubs,” Ward said. “So, it provided a real opportunity to compare past and present through something very tangible.”
Parks Canada only provides one camping permit per night per campground through the Maligne River Valley. The trail, which had been decommissioned, was overgrown and almost every bridge had been washed out or broken.
Because everyone on the trip had backcountry experience, the crew was able to move through the landscape and capture the necessary footage.
By retracing this journey, Ward concluded that Schäffer must have been “a pretty hardy person,” despite coming from an upper-middle-class family that lived in Victorian-era Pennsylvania.
“I try to picture her upbringing and how that would rub against these experiences that she was having in her 40s in the wilderness,” she said. “It would just have been such a life-changing thing for her as it was for me when I first encountered the mountains.”
The highlight of the trip came when the crew arrived at Maligne Lake. Rather than building a raft as Schäffer did, a group of volunteers hiked out to leave canoes for them. Pacis had been unable to partake in the hike due to tearing her ACL five weeks prior, but she took part in the canoe portion.
“To be able to experience Maligne Lake in that way feels like such a gift,” Pacis said.
During the last week of editing, their expedition photographer, Natalie Gillis, died in a plane crash in Albany, N.Y. on June 17. Pacis said they made some changes to the film at the 11th hour so it could stand as a tribute to Gillis and her photography that appears in the film.
“By making this film, I actually got to spend more time with her in a very special place,” she added.
Ward described Gillis as being integral to the film, which now has a whole new level of meaning. She noted how Schäffer had gone into the wilderness largely to heal from her own losses.
“For me, that’s been one of the biggest things that I’m going to take away from this film process, was having had the opportunity to know Natalie before the expedition but also having experienced that Maligne portion with her and being able to now reflect on how I’ll be doing what Mary did,” she said. “I’ll be moving through the wilderness as a way of reconnecting with Natalie and finding peace amidst the loss of her.”
Pacis hoped the film would inspire those who are on the precipice of reinventing themselves or want to look back on history with fresh eyes in a way that helps people choose a better path forward.
“Every time I see it, there’s definitely some strong emotions that kind of still come in ways, but I hope that people who knew Natalie will see it and feel some level of comfort,” she added. “And I also hope that people who didn’t know Natalie will get to know her in a way, and through some of her work, and that she can continue to inspire people the way that she did when she was with us, to a degree, through our film.”
