Sojourning Sisters

'This book is an absolutely delightful read - thoroughly grounded in historical scholarship, it makes a significant contribution to understanding nation building as the work of ordinary citizens and underscores the importance of women's work in this endeavour.' -- Dianne Hallman, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan 'An important book that merits a wide audience ... Sojourning Sisters is a magnificent piece of historical interpretation and storytelling. Barman has original insights into British Columbia and the process of nation building, and she skilfully translates the lives of Annie and Jessie McQueen into stories of nation builders.' -- Suzanne Morton. BC Studies 'The narrative in Sojourning Sisters is carried by the extensive and vibrant correspondence between the various family members ... Thanks to Barman's scholarship, and the wealth of primary sources on which she was able to draw, we can now appreciate the role that two engaging individuals played in the shaping of a nation.' -- Charlotte Gray, Canadian Historical Review

Drawing on family correspondence, Jean Barman offers a new interpretation of early settlement across Canada in the stories of two young sisters from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, who took the train west to British Columbia in 1886.

Shortly after the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1886, two young sisters from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, took the train west to British Columbia. Jessie and Annie McQueen each intended to teach there for three years and then return home. In fact they remained sojourners between British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Ontario for much of their lives.

Drawing on family correspondence and supported by extensive engagement with current scholarship, Jean Barman tells the sisters' stories and, in doing so, offers a new interpretation of early settlement across Canada. As did many other women of these years, Jessie and Annie McQueen remained bound by daughterhood's obligations and sisterhood's bonds even as they got involved in their new communities. Barman takes seriously women as sojourners and uses Jessie and Annie McQueen's letters home to evoke the boundless energy and enthusiasm shown by the thousands of women who helped to form Canada's frontiers.

Like other sojourners, the McQueen sisters did not come to their new home empty handed. They brought with them a distinctly Scottish Presbyterian way of life, consistent with ideas of the nation being promoted in the public realm by fellow Nova Scotians such as George Monro Grant. Confident in their assumptions, including the central role of religion in the formation of a grand national vision, women like these sisters were critical in uniting Canada from coast to coast. Broad in its critical approach and nuanced in its interpretations, Sojourning Sisters is a major contribution to the field of life writing and to the political, gender, and social history of Canada.