‘Quite a pleasant little afternoon’s sport’: Imperial Femininity and Hunting Culture in Impressions of a Tenderfoot

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the 1890 book Impressions of a Tenderfoot during a journey in search of sport in the Far West, by Susan MacKinnon St Maur. It argues that St Maur used conventions of male-produced texts on hunting and masculine notions of sport, while drawing on ‘feminine’ themes and topics as well, charting a unique ‘imperial femininity’ (Procida 2001). She proclaimed her ability to participate in male-coded outdoor activities, and argued for her place in the British Empire. Instead of obviously appropriating masculinity and challenging normative femininity, she found ways to make her exploits more palatable to her readers, while still asserting her status as a ‘sportsman’. Descriptions of the people she meets, whether settler or Indigenous, and her concern with race and the politics of imperialism, stress her place in the hierarchy of the colonial project, based on her own race and class, complicating normative gender roles of the period.