The March/April 2025 issue of Canadian Geographic features a story on Wildflowers and retracing the footsteps of Mary Schäffer Warren, accompanied by a stunning collection of photographs by the late and great Natalie Gillis.

There’s this person I met about 17 years ago. It was my first summer working in the mountains at a historic lodge in Banff National Park. Now, by this point, this person had been lying in the Banff Cemetery for 66 years, but her story was so compelling that it has been the subject of much Rockies folklore. Her accomplishments as an explorer, writer, photographer and artist put her name in the history books alongside notable men of the same era.

Mary Schäffer was no ordinary woman.

For anyone who has been there in its 100-year history, Abbot Pass Hut is a remarkable place. For anyone who hasn’t been, a quick glimpse of its location might make one double-take. Perched upon an inhospitable heap of stone piles between Mts. Lefroy and Victoria on the border of Banff and Yoho national parks, Abbot Pass Hut has been keeping mountaineers warm and safe since its construction in 1922.

But that heap of stones proved to be unstable.