Watch-fires on the Mountains

The late Ethel Johns LL.B. was a pioneer nurse of the Canadian west whose influential leadership helped to shape the history of nursing in this country during a period of rapid social change in the first half of the twentieth century. This biography reveals her active involvement in nursing affairs at the local, national, and international levels. She was an astute observer and recorder of the times in which she lived, and her writings are a vivid commentary on the changing nursing scene and its relation to medical and other groups and the community at large. As editor of the Canadian Nurse for many years, Ethel Johns expressed strong convictions about areas of nursing education and service in which reforms were needed. Early in her career, she voiced concern about community and national problems related to health care and proposed potential solutions. Ethel Johns was aware that nursing history was in the making and took price in her role as one of the leaders whose responsibility it was to blaze the trail and light watch-fires on the mountains for the guidance of those who would follow. The life and writings of this courageous and sometimes controversial woman should interest not only members of the nursing profession but all in related medical arts.