{{Short description|Scottish-born naturalist and conservationist (1864–1938)}} {{Infobox person | name = Elsie Cassels | birth_name = Elsie McAlister | birth_date = February 1864 | birth_place = St. Mary's Loch, Scotland | death_date = 12 November 1938 (aged 74) | death_place = Red Deer, Alberta, Canada | occupation = {{hlist|Naturalist|ornithologist|scientist|conservationist}} | organization = First woman to be Vice-President of a Canadian naturalist society }}
'''Elsie Cassels''' (February 1864 — 12 November 1938) was a Scottish-born naturalist and the first woman to become Vice-President of a Canadian naturalist society.<ref>{{Cite book|last=McNicholl|first=Martin K.|url=|title=Ornithology in Ontario|last2=Cranmer-Byng|first2=Jack|last3=Ornithologists|first3=Ontario Field|publisher=Hawk Owl Publishing|year=1994|isbn=978-0-9697952-0-9|location=Cornell University|pages=188|language=en}}</ref> Cassels lived in Red Deer, Alberta and became a recognised authority across Canada on migratory birds who exchanged information (from detailed observations from 1920 to 1935), with the leading (male) ornithologists of her day,<ref name=":2" /> 'her keen enthusiasm stimulated a wide interest in ornithology'.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/89322|title=The Canadian Field-Naturalist|date=1939|publisher=The Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club |volume=53|location=Ottawa}}</ref> Cassels objected to game hunting for pleasure as a conservationist before this was a common approach to wildlife, and helped found a bird sanctuary and in 1924 one of the first Canadian wildlife refuges at Gaetz Lakes, Alberta.<ref name=":2" />
== Biography == Elsie McAlister was born in February 1864 near St. Mary's Loch south of Edinburgh<ref name=":1" /> to father, Free Church teacher, Archibald McAlister, and mother Janet Reid. Elsie had three brothers and two sisters and the family lived with another family of four lodgers in Megget; two of her brothers, John and Charles worked in the insurance business, and may have introduced Elsie to the man she later married. In 1899, Elsie married William Cassels,{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}} born in Yorkshire, England to Scottish parents, his father Andrew Cassels, vicar of Batley, was known to the Brontë family.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Barker|first=Juliet|url=|title=The Brontes|date=2010-11-04|publisher=Little, Brown Book Group|isbn=978-0-7481-2218-9|location=UK|pages=|language=en}}</ref> William was educated privately at the Edinburgh Academy, when his mother was widowed.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/edinburghacademy00edinuoft|title=Edinburgh Academy Records|last=|first=|date=1914|website=The University of Edinburgh Archive|access-date=21 April 2020}}</ref> The Cassels was an 'irregular' marriage performed by a lodger at the Free Church School House. The couple were from different religious backgrounds with William brought up in the Church of England, and Elsie from the Free Church of Scotland.<ref name=":0">{{Cite thesis|title=A natural adaptation : Elsie (McAlister) Cassels, Scottish immigrant and naturalist on the Albertan prairie, 1889-1938|url=https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/186/|publisher=Concordia University|date=1997|degree=masters|language=en|first=Ernestine|last=Crossfield}}</ref>
The Cassels emigrated to Canada where they were homesteaders (a community where prairie women did physical tasks and frequently undertook traditional male roles on the homestead farms). Their first home was at Wavy Lake, Alberta before moving to a farm at Springvale, then moving into Red Deer.<ref name=":1" />
Journalists wrote in the ''Red Deer Advocate'' when William Cassels died in 1941, and his estate was estimated at $90,000 noting 'plenty of money, but Elsie had never been allowed to spend any of it',<ref name=":1" /> and among the ornithology community where Cassels was respected, her husband, William was known for his frugality.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Ainley|first=Marianne Gosztonyi|url=|title=Restless Energy: A Biography of William Rowan, 1891-1957|date=1993|publisher=Véhicule Press|year=|isbn=978-1-55065-027-3|location=|pages=132|language=en}}</ref>
Cassels life was based in a log cabin and she developed local nature trails,<ref name=":2" /> she identified birdsongs and was a self-taught violinist,<ref name=":3" /> called 'a woman of charm and culture' in her obituary.<ref name=":1" /> Cassels was childless at a time when that was seen as a stigma. In 1935, Cassels was described in the ''Calgary Herald'', as knowing her birds 'as mothers know their children. Cassels will remain forever young, for she lives in a world of nature and nature never grows old'.
== Ornithology == Cassels was among the volunteer ornithologists whose field research<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ainley|first=Marianne Gosztonyi|url=|title=Despite the Odds: Essays on Canadian Women and Science|publisher=Véhicule Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0-919890-96-1|location=the University of Michigan|pages=58|language=en}}</ref> made them 'outstanding individuals..who spent entire lifetimes learning about [Alberta] province's flora and fauna and sharing that knowledge with others.'<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Naturalists|first=Federation of Alberta|url=|title=Fish, Fur & Feathers: Fish and Wildlife Conservation in Alberta 1905-2005|last2=Society|first2=Fish and Wildlife Historical|date=2005|publisher=Nature Alberta|year=|isbn=978-0-9696134-7-3|location=|pages=|language=en}}</ref> Cassels was an enthusiastic speaker and writer on subjects such as local and migratory birds, botany, and other wildlife.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Agriculture|first=Alberta Dept of|url=|title=Annual Report - Alberta Agriculture|publisher=Alberta Agriculture.|year=1922|isbn=|location=the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign|pages=163–165|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=|first=|url=|title=The Canadian Entomologist|publisher=Entomological Society of Canada|year=1922|isbn=|location=Indiana University|pages=102|language=en}}</ref>
Cassels became the first female Vice-President of Alberta National History Society.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/17564|title=The Canadian Field-Naturalist.|last2=Club|first2=Ottawa Field-Naturalists'|last3=Club|first3=Ottawa Field-Naturalists'|date=1922|publisher=Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club.|volume=v.36 (1922)|location=Ottawa}}</ref>
Cassels was self-educated from her own observations<ref>{{Cite book|last=Cassels|first=Elsie|url=|title=The Canadian Field-Naturalist|publisher=Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club|year=1936|isbn=|location=the University of Michigan|pages=12|language=en}}</ref> and over a period of fifty years keeping diaries on migratory birds<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":1" /> enjoyed correspondence with national institutes<ref>{{Cite book|last=Davis|first=William Edwin|url=|title=Contributions to the History of North American Ornithology|last2=Jackson|first2=Jerome A.|publisher=Nuttall Ornithological Club|year=1995|isbn=978-1-877973-36-9|location=the University of Michigan|pages=292|language=en}}</ref> and engagement with key Canadian ornithological contacts such as Percy A. Taverner of the Victoria National Museum, Ottawa and William Rowan of University of Alberta, Edmonton,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Harris|first=Craig K.|url=https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict00ceva|url-access=limited|title=Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists|last2=Sterling|first2=Keir Brooks|last3=Harmond|first3=Richard P.|last4=Harmond|first4=Richard A.|last5=Cevasco|first5=George A.|last6=Hammond|first6=Lorne F.|date=1997|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=|isbn=978-0-313-23047-9|location=|pages=[https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict00ceva/page/n166 146]|language=en}}</ref> who was a lifelong friend, and whom Cassels helped establish the Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary.<ref name=":3" />
Cassels studies of the habitat and behaviour of birds of prey around her in the prairie were thoroughly documented and quoted in anthologies for her studies of both the barred owl and the gyrfalcon. Her spotting the gyrfalcon, the first record of this species in Alberta, killed in a homestead for attacking turkeys in a domestic setting in 1920, was referred to her own 1922 work and even remarked upon in 1961.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bent|first=Arthur Cleveland|title=Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey: (part 2), Orders Falconiformes and Stringiformes|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|year=1961|isbn=|location=The University of California|pages=6}}</ref>
When Cassels became Vice President of the Alberta Natural History Society in 1917, she was not only the first female<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shearer|first=Benjamin F.|url=|title=Notable Women in the Physical Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary|last2=Shearer|first2=Barbara Smith|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1997|isbn=978-0-313-29303-0|location=the University of Michigan|pages=473|language=en}}</ref> in that role, but the first woman to hold office in any Canadian natural history association. Cassels held this post up to 1922, and debated with fellow naturalist, the president Dr. Henry George and supported ''The Canadian Field-Naturalist''. Cassels' time with Charles Snell, next president was congenial.
Cassels helped practical developments like purple martin colonies at Sylvan Lake,<ref name=":2" /> although attempts were made to have the Red Deer River Canyon designated as a provincial park in 1906, this was not supported. Cassels's leadership and role as game officer for the Canada Bird Protection Society at Gaetz Lakes, formerly known as the Red Deer Bird Sanctuary, allowed it to eventually be designated as a Dominion Wildlife Refuge in 1924, but required constant vigilance.<ref name=":2" />
Cassels wrote eloquently about her love of nature, refusing to clear a wasps nest, studying its construction and respecting all living things.<ref name=":0" /> Cassels observations were like this in ''Red Deer Advocate,'' 15 July 1921:<blockquote>'I know of no prettier sight than a flock of Redwings flying back and forth over their nesting grounds, in the morning sunlight, trilling their lovely call note, and spreading their scarlet wings to show the gorgeous scarlet and cream-edged shoulder patch as they hover over the nest.' </blockquote>in 1925, William Rowan visited the Cassels' Sylvan Lake home, ''Ark,'' and discussed ornithology, went canoeing on the lake and rambling. He sent also sent his research and draft articles for Cassels' scrutiny on different species.<ref name=":3" />
== Death and legacy == Cassels died of a stroke on 12 November 1938, at the Red Deer Municipal Hospital.<ref name=":1" /> At her death, her husband destroyed all her field notebooks and diaries.<ref name=":0" /> Cassels had taken part in an amateur comic play called '''Lady Jane''<nowiki/>' created with Cassels as 'bird woman' the main character by Margaret Yule of Saanichton, British Columbia, it is not known if it was performed again however.<ref name=":0" />
Cassels' work is still cited in modern publications such as ''Bibliography of Alberta Naturalists'', from her notes in ''The Canadian Field-Naturalist'', which in her obituary, said that by ' her keen enthusiasm, she stimulated a wide interest in the study of ornithology.<ref name=":1" />
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cassels, Elsie}} Category:1864 births Category:1938 deaths Category:Ornithological citizen science Category:Canadian naturalists Category:Scottish emigrants to Canada Category:Women in Alberta