The wide valley of the Big Smoky could be seen for many miles and, between Mt. Bess and the great white mountain, a large tributary valley which leads across the Continental Divide at its head to the Beaver River, a tributary of the Fraser. Donald Phillips, who, with Konrad Kain, spent part of the past winter (1911-12) trapping and exploring in the locality, writes me: “We did a lot of exploring this winter up in that country and found two more passes to the Stony River, but they are too rough at present to go over with horses. We also discovered two passes from the Smoky to the Beaver River, that flows into the Fraser. The Beaver River is about forty miles long.

— Wheeler 1911

Donald Phillips had told us that somewhere up on these alplands [near Mount Bess] there was a caribou trail which would lead us down to the Beaver River.

— Sibbald 1947

The name “Beaver River” appears on the “Preliminary Map of the Canadian Rocky Mountains between Jarvis Pass and Yellowhead Pass” (Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc. Vol. XLVII, No. 7, 1915), showing the route followed by Mary Lenore Jobe Akeley [1878–1966] in August 1914 with guide Donald Phillips.