In 1884, Yates’s family moved to California, and Yates attended high school in San Diego. Around 1906 he homesteaded on Hobo Ranch, west of Lac Ste. Anne (about 45 miles west of Edmonton). With his brother Bill, he packed supplies for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railwaysurveyors, and in 1907 he contracted to carry the mail to railroad construction camps between Edmonton and Tête Jaune Cache.

While carrying the mail past the base of Mount Robson in September 1907, Yates ran into Arthur Philemon Coleman [1852–1939] and his mountaineering party. Returning from their unsuccessful attempt to climb Robson, Coleman’s party met Yates again at Big Eddy, and Arthur Coleman accompanied the mail-carrier to Edmonton. “Before bidding goodbye to Yates, the hustler, born in England and brought up in California, I sounded him as to another expedition the following summer,” Coleman wrote, “and found him willing to arrange for horses if I wanted to go.”

In 1908 Coleman’s party regrouped at the Hobo Ranch and, guided by Yates with the assistance of Adolphus Moberly, approached Mount Robson by way of the Moose River. On September 5 the climbers, including Yates, who carried an alpenstock he had made out of a pole and a heavy wire nail, reached the 10,000 foot level, but had to turn back because of the lateness of the day and Yates’s frozen feet. The group made two more attempts, and group member George R. B. Kinney [1872–1961] made a solo climb, but they left Robson a virgin peak, arranging with Yates to try again in August of 1909.

In May of 1909, Kinney heard that “a party of foreigners” were planing to assault Mount Robson that summer. He sent a frantic wire to Yates and hurried from his home in Victoria to Edmonton. Awaiting him was a letter from Yates, explaining that it would be madness to start for the mountain so early in the year, especially since spring had been very late and the snowfall exceptionally heavy. Kinney hit the trail alone, teamed up with Donald “Curly” Phillips [1884–1938] near Jasper, and went on to climb Mount Robson, a feat which was later disputed. Returning to Edmonton, Kinney and Phillips met the dreaded “party of foreigners:” Arnold Louis Mumm [1859–1927], Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery [1873–1955], Geoffrey Hastings, and mountain guide Moritz Inderbinen [1856–1926], under the care of John Yates. The party was not successful at Mount Robson.

In 1910, Yates guided Mumm and Collie to the Mount Robson area, where they “discovered a splendid snow mountain that Yates named Mt. Bess,” after Elizabeth Gunn of Lac Ste. Anne, on whom Yates had a crush. In 1911, Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] in the vicinity of Calumet Creek, noticed an “old blazed track known as the Yates trail, because it was made by a packer of that name…. The Yates trail comes out in an open at the highest point. It well might be called ‘Exclamation Point.’ Looking south in the V of the valley, Mt. Resplendent stands a great white cone, clad from head to foot in eternal snows. Below, the the left, Yates Torrent issues from the forefoot of Coleman Glacier, a splendid icefall, the main northern outflow of Reef Névé.”

“Yates Torrent” did not become an official name; the stream issuing from the Coleman Glacier is an unnamed tributary of the upper Smoky River.

Yates retired from outfitting and moved back to California, ca.1920.

Earl Francis Woodley [1892–?] was postmaster at Red Pass Junction from 1923 to 1946. Earl and his wife Edna (1899-1971) ran the Red Pass general store and hotel from 1923 until 1944. Earl’s father, about 70 years old in 1944, was bartender in the pub. One of the Woodley boys married a Hinkelman girl and lived in McBride.

Called “Flat Heart River” by David Thompson [1770–1857] in 1811, who descended it after crossing the Athabasca Pass.

Our residence was near the junction of two Rivers from the Mountains with the Columbia: the upper Stream which forms the defile by which we came to the Columbia, I named the Flat Heart, from the Men being dispirited ; it had nothing particular. The other was the Canoe River ; which ran through a bold rude valley, of a steady descent, which gave to this River a very rapid descent without any falls….

In his edition of the journal of Edward Ermatinger [1797–1876], who crossed the Athabasca Pass with a fur brigade in 1827, James White notes that “the Wood river was apparently so named after the dense forest traversed by the portage road up its valley.”

Origin of the name unknown.

The first attempted ascent was at the Alpine Club of Canada’s special mountaineering camp at Mount Robson in 1913. The Swiss guide Walter Schauffelberger [1881–1915] led Basil Stewart Darling [1885–1962] and Harley H. Prouty [ca. 1857-1916] to within 400 feet of the summit, but they were turned back by lack of time in an approaching storm.

The first ascent was in 1955, by Don Claunch, Harvey Firestone, and Mike Sherrick

“Up, up we toiled, winding round crags, in and out piles of windfall, over hummocks of rocks, through furiously boiling creeks and innocent-looking muskegs…. All topics of conversation had long been exhausted; dead timber and a windfall-strewn trail, with their pitfalls and dangers, are not conducive to comment, except of a querulous character. ” Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot [1880–1924] wasn’t referring to this creek, but almost every early traveller to the region had to fight windfall.

Origin of the name unknown.

William Olexiuk

The addition to the McBride and District Hospital, built in1988, was named after William Olexiuk [1918–1988], who was born at Vilna, Alberta, to Sam and Anne Olexiuk of the Ukraine. In 1934, Olexiuk started working in logging camps in Alberta. In 1940, he married Helen Semeluk of Vilna. In 1945, Bill and Helen moved to Valemont, where he worked in the logging and hauling businesses. He was a member of the McBride and District Hospital Board since its formation in 1954. Olexiuk served terms as president of the Valemount Red Cross and the Valemount Community Association. He was active in the Yellowhead Highway Association in the 1950s.

Location approximate. Origin of the name unknown.

The BC Geographical Names office says the name was “adopted in 1925 as labelled on BC map 3H, 1919.” However, Pre-emptor’s map Tête Jaune 3H 1919 does not appear to include this name.

“Whiteshield Mountain” does appear on Boundary Commission Sheet 33. The Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission surveyed the area in 1923.