A Northern Light

The first woman elected to the Canadian House of Commons was Agnes Macphail. She served as a Progressive Party MP for Grey Southeast, in Ontario, from 1921 to 1935 and, after her riding was redistributed, as a United Farmers of Ontario MP for Grey-Bruce from 1935 to 1940. She championed rural issues, seniors’ pensions, workers’ rights, and, as famously detailed in a “Heritage Minute,” penal reform. She also sat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, worked as a journalist, and founded the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada.

While many Canadians have at least some familiarity with Macphail and her pivotal role, the same probably cannot be said of our country’s second female MP, Martha Black. That’s unfortunate.

Black’s life was both fascinating and wildly unconventional for a woman of her time. She joined the Klondike gold rush, managed a sawmill, had an unexpected interlude in public service, developed an...