Hubbard, Mina Benson ___ 1870-1956 ___ Canadian ___ nurse writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Mina was born in Hamilton Township on a farm near Bewdley, Ontario, and was the seventh of eight children. She worked as a teacher then as a nurse. In 1901, she married an American writer Leonidas Hubbard. In 1903, Leonidas with a friend, Dillon Wallace, and George Elson, set out on an expedition to a desolate area of Labrador - stretching nearly 1,000 kilometres from North West River near Goose Bay to George River Post on Ungava Bay in northern Quebec - that had never been described or mapped. However, early on in the expedition, the team went along the wrong river and got lost. Leonidas died of starvation, but Wallace and Elson were eventually rescued. Wallace published an account of the journey which criticised Leonidas. In 1905, with the help of Elson and several others hired by Elson, Mina herself undertook a similar expedition. It was a success, for she came back with the first maps of the Naskaupi and George River valleys, along with notes on the flora and fauna of Labrador. Some time later, while in England she met and, in 1908, married Harold Ellis. Thereafter, she remained in England and became a celebrated public speaker. She was also involved with women's suffrage. The couple divorced in 1926. In 1956, she was killed in the most dramatic way, by a train on railway tracks in Coulsdon, south of London, England. Confusingly, there are two books about her expedition, one - 'The Woman Who Mapped Labrador' - contains her diary, but this one is not available as an etext. However, 'A Woman's Way through Unknown Labrador' is available as an etext, and this, apparently, contains extracts of her husband's diary.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio (in French)

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1905 ___ exploration weather nature

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
etext
about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Memorial University of Newfoundland

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Woman Who Mapped Labrador: The Life And Expedition Diary Of Mina Hubbard
A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador
 

December 2005, July 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.