When Swiss mountain guides met Canadian landscape artists

Noted New York climber Georgia Engelhard and Ernest Fuez, Swiss guide of the Chateau Lake Louise, climbing the snow ridge on Mt Victoria with Lake Louise in the background, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, 1931. Getty Images / Underwood Archives

Shari Zisk-Feuz’s great-grandfather, Walter Feuz, was one of the famous Swiss mountain guides in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, hired to attract tourists. In her second report into her family’s history, she travels from Canada to the Bernese Oberland.

I’ve been preparing for my trip to the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland to learn more about my family’s roots in the Swiss Alps. I’m interested in the lives of these Swiss-trained mountain guides and how they came to settle in Western Canada. As I gathered resources about my Swiss great-grandfathers and great-uncles, I went along some fascinating avenues of exploration.

Shari Zisk-Feuz at home. Paintings by Lawren Harris are in the background. Katherine Tuttle

The Swiss mountain guides greatly influenced alpine culture in Western Canada, which is well-documented. However, I also discovered a subtle yet beautiful role the Swiss guides played alongside the emerging landscape painters of North America.

The Swiss mountaineer and the North American artist

My great-uncle, Swiss guide Edward Feuz Jr., noted that most of the Swiss guides’ first clients in the Canadian Rockies were artists. The turn of the century saw the Modernist art movement in full swing, and the new Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) opened the west to new landscapes to be sketched and painted for the first time in history.

In 1920 a group of now-famous Canadian landscape painters came together to form what is known as “The Group of Seven”. Among them was artist Lawren Harris (1885-1970), known for his striking Canadian landscape paintings. In 1924 Harris made the first of six annual journeys to sketch in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

In 2014 I visited the Vancouver Art Gallery, which featured several Lawren Harris works. His beautiful mountain vistas resonated with me. The deep, rich alpine palette caught my eye, and I purchased a series of his mountain works to decorate my home.

Lawren Harris (1885 -1970) is known for his impressive Canadian landscape paintings. P.spiro / Alamy Stock Photo

As I researched the artist and his works, I realized a special relationship between Harris’s mountain paintings on my wall and my Swiss forefathers.

The stunning Lake MacArthur rests at the base of a series of British Colombia Rocky Mountain peaks, named for the first five Swiss guides who worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Walter (Feuz) Peak, Ernest (Feuz) Peak, Edward (Feuz) Peak, Christian (Haesler) Peak and Rudolph (Aemmer) Peak. Indeed Harris joined one of these Swiss mountaineers on an expedition to the rugged region.

Bruno Engler Archives

Harris’s mountain paintings are likened to his better-known contemporary Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), the famous American Modernist artist who also shares a link with our Swiss mountain guides in Canada.

The lady mountaineer and painter

While reading The Guiding Spirit (Putnam & Kaufman, 1988), the delightful book about the Swiss guides in Canada, I learned that extreme peak-seekers were not always men. There are many references to one exceptional female client: Georgia Engelhard (1906-1986). Engelhard was an American mountain climber who made an astonishing number of climbs in the 1930s in the Canadian mountains, including 32 first peak ascents. Mount Engelhard is named for her.

“You’ve got a fine lady, but watch out. When she starts uphill, she goes like a rocket,” said guide Edward Feuz Jr., who guided Georgia on many of her climbs.

In addition to being an avid mountain climber, Georgia Engelhard was also an artist. She was a painter, and coincidentally, she was the niece of Georgia O’Keeffe. Although Engelhard never reached the popularity of her famous aunt, she produced mountain works that were often mistaken for those of her aunt.

Georgia Engelhard retired in Interlaken, the birthplace of her longtime friends, the Swiss guides she met in the Canadian Rockies. She took up mountain photography in Interlaken, and many of her photos appeared in early Swiss tourism marketing.

My ascent begins

It is almost time to board the train for my personal journey to the Alps. Furthermore, as I explore the valleys, peaks and villages of my ancestors, I will also be on the lookout for some beautiful mountain landscape art inspired by the Modernist landscape artists who climbed with the Swiss guides in the Canadian Rockies at the turn of the century.

This is the second article by Shari Zisk-Feuz about her journey to Switzerland. You can read the first one here.