A WOMAN who swapped life in Reading for the Canadian wilderness has died at the age of 98.

Dorothy Carleton started life in Berkshire with her adoptive parents, George and Alice Fowler, and older sister Marjorie. She attended Alfred Sutton School until she was around 14, when she left to start work.

When war broke out in 1939, a 20-year-old Dorothy volunteered as an Air Raid Warden, going house to house with a flashlight to make sure residents had their lights turned off during enemy bombings.

To raise money for the war effort, keen dancer Dorothy and her friend, Olive Openshaw would hold dances and entertain at concerts. It was through this that she met her future husband, Canadian soldier Ed Carleton. The couple married in Reading in March 1945, but it wasn't until 1946 that Dorothy could join her husband in his home country, nearly 4,500 miles away..

Sailing out on the steamship 'Letitia' with their three-month-old son Michael, Dorothy made the journey from Liverpool to Halifax, before picking up a train to Calgary where she was met by Ed. The family went forth to Didsbury, in Alberta, where they stayed with Ed's family until he found work in Banff National Park with the warden service. The young family were posted to a wilderness cabin which would become their home, and Dorothy had to adapt to her new life in a new country with only basic amenities to hand.

Dorothy home-schooled Michael, and when second son Terry arrived in 1951 the family continued to thrive. In 1953, Ed was relocated to a larger town, where Michael could attend school, and the couple welcomed a third son, Brian, the following year.

In 1955, the family moved once more, and Dorothy was given more responsibilities giving information to visitors to the Mount Eisenhower district, selling fishing licences, relaying telephone calls among other tasks. Ed would spend days away from home on mountain rescues, fire fighting assignments or back-country patrols, leading Dorothy to develop a strong bond with the warden community.

The family moved to Banff in 1961 to a house where Dorothy would remain until 2015. She became something of an icon in the town through her involvement in the Royal Canadian Legion and the Ladies' Auxillary, playing a key part in Remembrance Day parades and services.

When Ed passed away in 1994, Dorothy became involved with the Banff Seniors club, and conducted the senior choir well into her mid-nineties. She kept busy volunteering for the local hospital, cheering patients up with her visits and chats, and would sing for the residents of a hospice.

Dorothy was honoured several times by the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, including one exhibition entitled Ten Most Courageous Women of the Rockies, and a painting of her as a war bride was added to the museum collection in 2016.

Her local newspaper, the Rocky Mountain Outlook, printed a three-page tribute to Dorothy following her death on June 30, describing her as 'parks royalty' and 'an English rose'.

Retired national park warden Scott Ward said: "She was a living legend of the Rockies and had a life well lived.

"Her whole family is iconic in the parks system. She meant a lot to us. She was a wonderful person and we will miss her."