Alice Wilson

Alice Evelyn Wilson, MBE, FRSC, FRCGS (August 26, 1881 – April 15, 1964) was Canada's first female geologist. She is most well known for her scientific studies of rocks and fossils in the Ottawa region between 1913 and 1963.

Early life
Alice Wilson was born in Cobourg, Ontario in 1881. Her father, Dr. John Wilson, was a professor of classics at the University of Toronto. From childhood, she was often exposed to nature during canoeing and camping trips with her father and two brothers, which helped to improve her struggling health. Alice Wilson's early fascination with palaeontology had roots in her childhood, when she had begun collecting fossils from the Cobourg Limestones near her home. Her passion for palaeontology led her to a role as a museum assistant within the palaeontology department of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in 1909.

Life
Growing up, Alice Wilson was surrounded by academics, such as her older brother, Alfred, who was a Ph.D. graduate from Harvard University and a respected geologist. When Wilson reached the age of 20, she enrolled at the University of Toronto to study Modern Languages. However, due to her health, Wilson had to drop out during her final year and did not complete her degree. According to her close friend Winston Sinclair, Wilson once confided that, during her youth, teaching was often viewed as the most socially acceptable career path for young women, so it is uncertain whether her choice to go into teaching was a personal choice or a result of societal expectations.

Wilson retired when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 65, as dictated by the prevailing laws of the time. Five individuals were hired to undertake the tasks she handled. However, even in retirement, Dr. Wilson continued to contribute her expertise to the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), volunteering her services without compensation. She continued to work in the field until shortly before her death.

In 1932, Alice Wilson spent a month in the Bahama Islands and Guyana. She traveled to Brazil, where she explored the depths of the Amazon jungle, and she also visited Mexico to participate in the International Geological Congress.

Challenges
Alice Wilson's significant contributions to the understanding of the geology of Ontario and Quebec were motivated in part by gender-based restrictions within the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC). The prevailing policy at the time prevented women, including Wilson, from participating in the field alongside male colleagues, a restriction that persisted until 1970. To overcome this challenge, Wilson proposed an alternative approach to conducting fieldwork, successfully persuading the GSC to grant her permission for solo research expeditions in the relatively unexplored Ottawa-St. Lawrence Valley. Wilson embarked on these expeditions to study geological formations, exploring the terrain on foot and by bicycle. When faced with the GSC's refusal to provide her with a car, a convenience routinely provided to male counterparts, she independently purchased a vehicle to facilitate her research endeavors.

Despite being a reputable geologist, Wilson experienced consistent denials of promotions based solely on her gender. She also encountered challenges in her relationships with colleagues, often being excluded and finding difficulty in project inclusion. Her final year of university took an unexpected turn when a severe bout of anemia affected her health to the point where she could not complete her coursework. She had to the discontinuation of her studies. But after a recovery period spanning several years, she began a new chapter in 1907 by accepting a position as a clerk at the University of Toronto.

Education
In 1901 Wilson began studying modern language and history at the Victoria College in Toronto originally intending to be a teacher. She did not finish her last year of studies due to health problems; suffered anemia and had to drop out, but continued education after recovering. After regaining her health, Alice Wilson worked at the Museum of Mineralogy as an assistant. She eventually completed her degree in 1911. In 1909, Wilson joined the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), where she was a staff member for more than 50 years. Despite being eligible to undertake a doctorate in 1915, Wilson was repeatedly denied paid time off from the GSC, even though the GSC was granting paid absences at the time. Wilson's direct boss from 1920, Edward M. Kindle, was supportive of Wilson and wanted her to take a leave and finish her doctorate though others in leadership roles at the GSC were much less so. For seven years Wilson persisted, and finally was awarded a scholarship by the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) in 1926.

During the seven years, Wilson's health continued to decline further. However despite facing health problems, and knowing that if she was a man the leave would have been granted, she continued to ask for permission to pursue her Ph.D. She explained that as to her understanding “the grounds for refusal have been various, the fundamental reason has been that it would make a woman eligible for the highest positions in the Survey” In 1924 she received leave however she faced another challenge of not receiving pay. This meant that she would need to find a way to fund her research outside of the Survey, something that was also not required of the men. During the seven years and after them, she actively applied for scholarships. This included one from the Canadian Federation of University Women. Despite the institution being in place to support women, Wilson faced another challenge with the Survey when they refused her allowance to apply for the annual scholarship. After much more resistance, Wilson was finally allowed to apply and became the 1926 recipient of the Canadian Federation of University Women's annual scholarship.

Career
In 1907, Wilson started her career at the University of Toronto museum in the mineralogy division, despite not having completed her degree. In 1909, she took an assistant job at the Victoria Memorial Museum, and then became eligible and took a temporary clerk position at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), which was headquartered at the Victoria Memorial Museum in Ottawa. Her past education of studying languages would later prove useful when she was requested to translate a portion of Karl Alfred von Zittel's Text-Book of Paleontology from German to English by Percy Raymond, whom also advocated Wilson to take a leave of absence from the GSC in order to finish her degree, which she received in 1910. Following her return in 1911, she was given a permanent position at the GSC, although she was still not allowed to participate in field studies alongside her male peers. This policy was finally changed in 1970.

Before the departure of colleague Percy Raymond, she wrote two articles, both of which recorded new species of animals. Respectively, a new branchiopod and then a bivalve. Wilson faced significant difficulty being included in her colleagues' work after that.

In 1916, during the First World War, Wilson's place of work, the Victoria Memorial Museum, was shut down and reoccupied as a war-time parliament. During this time, Wilson funded her projects with her own money, studying comparative anatomy and marine biology in Long Island, New York. Later, Wilson took part in the war-time effort on the home front, joining the Canadian equivalent of the Women's Land Army.

Meadowcroft had written that Wilson had become primary Geologist in 1945 but there is no proof of this. At war's end in 1920, Wilson went back to the Victoria Memorial Museum. She was promoted to assistant geologist in 1936. This was in lieu of the position she had requested for, which was Assistant Paleontologist. This was the highest position she had been allowed to advance to, due to her difficulty obtaining the scholarships to pursue the level of education she wanted.

While working at the GSC, they did not allow women to work together with men during fieldwork. So Wilson created her own niche and did fieldwork at local sites in the Ottawa area, going on to eventually map over 14,000 km2 of the Ottawa St Lawrence Lowlands entirely on her own. For fifty years she studied the area on foot, by bicycle and eventually by car. The GSC published the results of her fieldwork in 1946 and her Geology of the St. Lawrence Lowland, Ontario and Quebec was the first major geological publication about the area. In addition to a comprehensive discussion of its geology, Wilson covered the area's economic resources, including building stone, sand, gravel and drinking water. Wilson's research into the stratigraphy and invertebrate palaeontology of the Palaeozoic strata of eastern Canada was significant, though her contributions to the field did not gain recognition until after her retirement. In Ontario, her focus was on invertebrate fossils during the Ordovician period, specifically sediments and fossils in the Ottawa Valley. In the Rocky Mountains and the Arctic, Wilson studied Ordovician fauna. During the Great Depression, however, Wilson had to switch her focus from Ordovician to Devonian rocks, to meet the growing demand of petroleum in Western Canada. One of her tasks was to identify and categorize all Paleozoic invertebrates for examination. As a result, Wilson ordered the National Type Collection of fossils—an internationally recognized reference collection.

During her work on the Devonian fossils, Alice Wilson was still devoted to her educational work by leading field trips, serving as a tour guide for the Museum, and as a speaker to organizations.

From 1948 until 1958 Wilson was a lecturer in Paleontology at Carleton College (later Carleton University). Carleton recognized Wilson both as a geologist and as an inspiring teacher with an honorary degree in 1960. Wilson also worked to bring geology to a broader public. She wrote a children's book, The Earth Beneath our Feet, aimed at encouraging broader knowledge and interest in the science she was so passionate about. The book for children is a sweet and interesting story about three kids asking a geologist different questions about the Earth starting with: “Why do some rocks skip on water better than others?” Dr. Wilson once said that “The earth touches every life. Everyone should receive some understanding of it” (Massive Science). This explains her passion for teaching others about geology and the admiration she gained from her students at Carleton who knew her affectionately as the “rock doctor.”

Wilson's work on researching the geology and paleontology in the area of Cornwall, Ontario and the St. Lawrence lowlands was important for the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway that was built in 1954.

Wilson became a respected member of the GSC and mentored many young geologists through her lectures, field trips, publications, and museum exhibits. However, she was not referred to as "Doctor" by her colleagues until 1945—16 years after she obtained her doctorate. She retired two years later, at the age of 65, as was required by law, though five new hires were required to do the same amount of work as Wilson. However, she kept her office at the GSC and continued her work regardless of not being paid until her death in 1964.

Death
A few months before her death, Alice gave up her office at the GSC and informed Dr. James M. Harrison about it. Although Dr. Harrison tried to convince her not to leave, Alice responded by saying, “[Her] work is done.” She was recognized by the GSC and they named a meeting room named after her, “Alice Wilson Hall” in Ottawa.

Alice Wilson died in Ottawa on April 15, 1964, at the age of 84 years old.

Awards and recognition
Wilson was the first woman geologist hired by the Geological Survey of Canada (1909); one of the first two women elected as Fellows of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (1930); the first Canadian woman to be admitted to the Geological Society of America (1936); and the first female Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1938).

In 1935, when the government of R. B. Bennett was looking to honour a woman in the federal civil service, Wilson was chosen to become a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1991 the Royal Society of Canada established the Alice Wilson Awards for emerging women scholars. Wilson was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame in 2005.

On 18 October 2018, the Government of Canada dedicated a plaque to Wilson, recognizing her as a "person of national historic significance at the Canadian Museum of Nature."

In 2019, the tunnel boring machine used for the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) in Montreal was named "Alice" in honour of Wilson. The name was chosen out of 1400 public suggestions.