Mary Ruttan, one of Manitoba’s top female athletes of the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, was an exceptional all round competitor, excelling at alpine skiing and fencing.

Growing up in St. James, she played on a girls' softball team which often played and sometimes beat local boys teams. She played hockey on the Deer Lodge girls' team. From 1930- 42, Ruttan was a member of the Winnipeg Canoe Club.

While Ruttan was provincial fencing champion in 1933 and 1936 and cross country ski champion in 1938, it was on the slopes where her greatest sporting moments came. In 1939, she won the women’s invitational slalom at the Canadian Championships in Fort William, Ontario. Ruttan went on to sweep the downhill, slalom and combined crowns at the Banff/Sunshine Spring Ski Meet and finished fourth in the slalom at the Dominion Ski Championships in Banff the following year. She was so good at skiing she was invited to compete at the 1936 Winter Olympics. But at the height of the Great Depression, and without any government support, she declined, as was the case with many athletes of her era. In 1941-42 she won a women’s race at La Riviere, finishing only one second slower than the best time recorded by the men.

Her athletic career ended in 1942 when she married and started a family. But Ruttan was not finished with sport. A founding member of the Puffin Ski Club, she was a ski instructor for them during the war years and served on the executive of the Winnipeg Ski Club, Puffin Club and Manitoba Ski Zone. In equestrian, she was still judging competitive trail riding in 1974 at the age of 62. Ruttan pioneered women’s/mothers' exercise programs at the YWCA from 1948-49 and ran a well-known dance school in Winnipeg for over 30 years until her retirement in 1966.