Agnes Deans Cameron, teacher, writer and lecturer, was born in Victoria, B.C., and educated in Victoria public schools. She taught at Angela College, Victoria, and in Comox and Vancouver. Returning to Victoria in 1890, she became the first woman high school teacher in B.C., and in 1894 she was appointed the first woman principal in B.C., at South Park School in Victoria, a position she held until 1905. She was elected to the Victoria School Board in 1906 and also began working part-time as a journalist. In 1908, Cameron travelled up the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Circle, an account of which was published in 1910 as "The New North". In 1909 Cameron went to Britain, where she wrote a daily column on Canadian affairs for the London Daily Mail and lectured about Canada to encourage emigration. She returned to Victoria in 1911.