A former Jasper summer resident, Margaret Wright (nee Stock) passed away recently in Toronto. Known as ‘The Girl who climbed Mount Athabaska’ (sic) she was featured in a 1940 Star Weekly article, as well as in Life Magazine article on Jasper Park Lodge. The image of this dark-haired beauty can still be seen in several Harry Rowed prints on the wall of the Jasper Pizza Place and photo shops. See “Margaret Stock - waitress, biochemist, athlete, alpinist, cover girl?” (The Fitzhugh December 27, 2007).

Born Olga Margaret Stock, “Marg” earned a Master’s degree in Biology at the University of Toronto (during which she worked summers at Jasper Park Lodge), and subsequently worked at the Banting and Best Institute, Canada’s top biomedical research lab. That led to a medical posting in the Navy during the Second World War and after the War, marriage to Richard Wright and raising a big family. Marg was an avid sports fan and excelled at sports herself. She was inducted into the University of Toronto Sports Hall of Fame in 1992 for her prowess at swimming, hockey and basketball in her university years. In later years, she took up skiing, golf and tennis with husband Dick, whom she had first met, fittingly, when they teamed up for a doubles canoe race in Northern Ontario. She supported Canadian artists, enjoyed the theatre and was a volunteer lecturer at the Royal Ontario Museum. She was a master gardener and an intrepid world traveller, proud to say that she had set foot on all seven continents. She is survived by her six sons, all of whom are successful professionals in a range of fields, their spouses and partners, as well as nine grandchildren. She always held a great fondness for Jasper and its wild beauty and was talking about visiting sometime soon when she died following a stroke, a few weeks short of her 89th birthday.