March 1906

When the Alpine Club of Canada was organized in 1906, its first president, Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945], suggested to Arthur Philemon Coleman [1852–1939] that he undertake the conquest of the mountain. [1]

Founding member Elizabeth Parker [1856–1944] presented the rational of the formation of the Alpine Club of Canada:

“The objects of the Club are : (I) the promotion of scientific study and the exploration of Canadian alpine and glacial regions; (2) the cultivation of Art in relation to mountain scenery ; (3) the education of Canadians to an appreciation of their mountain heritage; (4) the encouragement, of the mountain craft and the opening of new regions as a national playground ; (5) the preservation of the natural beauties of the mountain places and of the fauna and flora in their habitat; (6) and the interchange of ideas with other Alpine organizations.”[2]

In addition to these objects, Parker proclaimed the moral virtues of mountaineering:

But the peril is, that men become satiated with wheat, and there, follows that effeteness which is worse than the effeteness of an unbalanced culture. Among other correctives none is more effective than this of the exercise of the mountain-craft. No sport is so likely to cure a fool of his foolishness as the steady pull, with a peril or two of another sort attending, of a season’s mountain climbing in one of those “thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice” in the wild alpine playground of Canada. The ethical value of mountaineering is a subject upon which our statesmen would do well to ponder; and there is a considerable Canadian Alpine literature from which they may gather data.

Any young man of latent intellectual and moral force, who comes to close grips with the waiting, challenging mountains, and puts one summit after another beneath the soles of his feet, has gained immensely in the Spartan virtues. Moreover, he has, by climbing to these skiey stations and standing face to face with Infinitude, learned some things he may not tell, because they are unspeakable. It is given to very few, to utter such experiences. But there comes to the mountaineer of pure mind and willing spirit the sense of which Wordsworth tells, of the presence interfused in Nature; the presence that dwells among the sheer peaks and in the living air and the blue sky and in the mind of man; the motion and the spirit that rolls through all things.… Browning sums it in his swift way : “which fools call Nature and I call God.

Parker also gave a sketch of the ACC, with a report of its progress up to April 15, 1907:

To begin before the beginning, it was foreshadowed twenty-four years ago on a clear, bracing, sunny day, when Sir Sandford Fleming, K.C.M.G., his son, S. Hall Fleming, the late Principal Grant of Queen’s University, and party with pack train emerged from the slow, difficult forest trail and rested at the welcome meadow on Rogers’ pass. Inspired by the glacier-mountains rising far and high about them, they resolved themselves into a Canadian Alpine Club; elected officers; passed a resolution of gratitude to Major Rogers, discoverer of the pass; proposed the conquest of the most formidable peak in the whole region; drank the Club’s health in a stream sparkling at their feet; and so ended. [3]