Arthur P. Coleman
University of Toronto Archives

Dr. A. P. Coleman. Lantern slide by Mary T. S. Schäffer Warren, 1907
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Moore family fonds

Arthur Philemon Coleman [1852–1939]

b. 1852 — Lachute, Quebec
d. 1939 — Toronto, Ontario

Arthur Philemon Coleman [1852–1939], a professor of geology at the University of Toronto, was the first person of European descent to record an attempt to climb Mount Robson. In 1907, accompanied by his brother Lucius and George R. B. Kinney [1872–1961], he approached via the valley of the Robson River and climbed above Kinney Lake. The pack trip from Laggan (Lake Louise) consumed most of their resources, and snow in early September drove them away.

Coleman’s party returned in 1908, guided by John Yates [1880–?] and Adolphus Moberly [1887–?], who took them up the Moose River valley. The party spent 21 days in the area, but only twice were there two successive days of good weather. On one climb they reached almost 11,000 feet (3350 m), but were turned back by darkness.

Born at Lachute, Canada East, Coleman studied at universities in Ontario and Germany. He was a fellow the the Royal Geographical Society and second president of the Alpine Club of Canada. He started his explorations in the Rocky Mountains in 1884. The first climber to pay serious attention to peaks in the vicinity of Athabasca Pass, in 1892 and 1893 Coleman led parties hoping to climb the famous mountains Brown and Hooker, which botanist David Douglas [1799–1834] had described in 1828 as being over 16,000 feet (4880 m) high. Coleman discovered their heights were less than 10,000 feet (3050 m).

Coleman named the following places in the Mount Robson region: Adolphus Lake, Berg Lake, and Kinney Lake.

He was author of The Canadian Rockies (1911) and Ice ages, recent and modern (1926), and was joint author of Elementary Geology (1922). He died, unmarried, in Toronto.

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution participated in the Biological Survey of the Canadian Rockies in 1911 at the request of Arthur Oliver Wheeler, Director of the Alpine Club of Canada. Wheeler was undertaking a topographic survey of British Columbia and Alberta and thought it would be an excellent opportunity for the Smithsonian to gather specimens from the region. The Alpine Club of Canada also helped to pay for a portion of the Smithsonian’s costs for sending staff. Official Smithsonian staff included N. (Ned) Hollister, Assistant Curator in the Division of Mammals (leader); and Joseph Harvey Riley, Aid in the Division of Birds. They were assisted by Charles D. Walcott, Jr. (son of the Secretary of the Institution) and H. H. Blagden. All specimens collected came to the Smithsonian, including mammals, birds, reptiles, batrachians, fishes, invertebrates, and plants.

John Yates [1880–]

b. 1880 — Blackburn, England

George Simpson [1792–1860]

b. 1792
d. 1860

Captain Hugh Drummond Allan, ca. 1914
BC Archives

Hugh Drummond Allan [1887–1917]

b. 1887 — Partick, Lanarkshire, Scotland
d. 1917 — Croiselles, France

Hugh Drummond Allan was born in Scotland and came to Canada around 1907. He became a British Columbia Land Surveyor in 1912. His professional work was carried on mainly in the Kamloops district and the North Thompson River valley. In 1913 he surveyed in the Canoe River area. “From Mile 49 on the Grand Trunk Pacific I proceeded with my party by wagon and reached the Canoe River in one day,” he reported.

After the start of the First World War he returned to Scotland and enlisted in Princess Louise’s (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders). In 1916 he was wounded, and in 1917 he was killed leading his company at Croiselles, France. Captain Allan was shortly predeceased by his wife and infant child.

The British Columbia Archives has the following item related to Hugh Drummond Allan (not available online as of 2022): Photograph, ca. 1890

The National Archives of the U.K. has officer service records pertaining to Lieutenant Hugh Drummond Allan of Princess Louise’s (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders).

There is another Canadian figure of Scottish birth named Hugh Allan [1810–1882], a shipping magnate.

A. L. (Pete) Withers

Rollin Thomas Chamberlin [1881–1948]

b. 1881 — Beloit, Wisconsin, USA
d. 1948

Rollin Thomas Chamberlin, 1881-1948, was a geologist and mountaineer at Chicago, Illinois. Chamberlin was an eminent Professor of Geology at the University of Chicago who, in 1910, made numerous guided climbs in the Rocky and Selkirk Mountains, including the Lake Louise, Lake O’Hara, Field and Glacier areas. In 1924, Chamberlin, Allen Carpe and A. L. Withers made a number of first ascents in the Cariboo Mountains, including Mount Titan (now Mount Sir Wilfred Laurier) and Mount Challenger.

Allen Carpe. Courtesy Am. A.J.
Canadian Alpine Journal

Rollin T. Chamberlin, L. E. “Slim” Goodell, Allen Carpe, A. L. Withers, George Burns
University of Chicago

Allen Carpé [1894–1932]

b. 1894 — Chicago,
d. 1932

Dalby Brooks Morkill [1880–1955]

b. 1880 — Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
d. 1955 — Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Morkill came to British Columbia in 1898. He received his commission as a British Columbia Land Surveyor in 1910. Morkill was employed in 1912 by the British Columbia government making surveys on the Fraser River between Horsey Creek and Holmes River. In 1913, with Alan S. Thompson, Morkill surveyed between the Goat River and Catfish Creek. Morkill worked on the Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission surveys north of Yellowhead Pass in the early 1920s. Subsequently Morkill surveyed in several other areas of the Province. During his last years he spent summers at his residence at Barkerville and winters in Vancouver. He was president of the Association of BC Land Surveyors in 1928.

Samuel Prescott Fay [1884–1971]

b. 1884
d. 1971

“Pete” Fay as he was known to his friends had been a member of the [American Alpine] Club for 59 years at the time of his death last August [1971]. His qualifications for election in 1912 were four seasons in the Canadian Rockies beginning in 1906. In 1914 he joined a Smithsonian expedition which left Jasper, Alberta in June for the purposes of exploration, mapping and the collection of birds and mammals in the northern Rockies. Reports were filed with the Biological Survey in Washington. In mid-October the party met a trapper who showed them an old newspaper with reports of the first weeks of World War I of which they had no inkling. For the next three or four days they traveled non-stop to reach Hudson Hope on the Peace River.
Pete graduated from Harvard in 1907. During World War I he joined the American Field Service to drive an ambulance in France and later served with the Air Force in France and Belgium. Afterwards he was associated with an investment counseling firm in Boston for many years. Aside from two years on the Council (1930-1932), he did not take an active part in Club affairs, though he attended frequent meetings. Frail health confined him to his home for the last ten or more years.