James E. McEvoy [1862–1935]

b. 1862 — Carleton County, Ontario
d. 1935 — Corbin, British Columbia

McEvoy, on the staff of the Geological Survey of Canada, made a reconnaissance of the route west of Edmonton through the Yellowhead Pass in 1898, during which he took the first photograph of Mount Robson.

McEvoy’s father was James McEvoy [b. 1818, County Kildare, Ireland – d. 1896, Ottawa, Ontario], a farmer who arrived in Canada before 1833. The elder McEvoy married Margaret McNamara [b. 1820, Tipperary, Ireland—d. 1900] in Ottawa in 1848 (1, 2).

James Jr. was educated in Ottawa public schools and McGill University, graduating in science in 1883. For a short time he taught school and then accepted a position on the staff of the Geological Survey of Canada, where he remained for 15 years (3). As a young man, he became interested in military affairs, was an officer in the Governor General’s Foot Guards, Ottawa, later a Captain in the Kootenay Rifles, having organized two companies in that Regiment. In the Firstg World War, with the rank of Major, he was on the staff of the chief instructor in trench warfare at Niagara, London, and border camps (4).

In 1889 he accompanied George Mercer Dawson [1849–1910], the assistant director of the Survey, on geological investigations in British Columbia(5). In 1898 he made a geological survey of the Yellowhead Pass route from Edmonton to Tête Jaune Cache for the Geological Survey, passing by Mount Robson:

When we first caught sight of it, a shroud of mist partially enveloped the summit, but this presently rolled away, and we saw its upper portion dimmed by a necklace of feathery clouds, beyond which its pointed apex of ice, glittering in the morning sun, shot up far into the blue heaven above. The top of the mountain is usually completely hidden and rarely indeed is it seen entirely free from clouds. The actual height of the peak is 13,700 feet, or 10,750 feet above the valley.… Although Robson Peak has been long known, its height had never been determined, nor was it supposed to be particularly notable in that respect, but now since the height of Mts. Brown, Hooker and Murchison have been proved to be greatly exaggerated, it has the distinction of being the highest known peak in the Canadian Rockies. [p. 16]

His report included a map showing the Yellowhead Pass route from Edmonton to Tête-Jaune Cache (6). Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] wrote in 1912 (7):

The splendid report of James McEvoy, published by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1900, dealing with the geology and natural history resources of the country traversed by the Yellowhead Pass route from Edmonton to Tête-Jaune Cache, contains the most comprehensive and reliable geographical information that has yet been published, and also contains the only geographical map published of that route on a sufficiently large scale to be of value.

In 1901 Mr. McEvoy became geologist for the Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company at Fernie, B.C. He married Florence Ray [1876 – d. 1942] in 1902. In 1906 was appointed chief engineer of the company, but relinquished the position soon afterwards to commence practice in Toronto. He was regarded as one of the best authorities on coal and his services had been retained for numerous enterprises in connection with coal, iron, and oil operations, not only in Canada but in all parts of the world. He was a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Engineering Institute of Canada, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the Mining and Metallurgy Institute, London, England (8).

EARLY CITIZEN DIES SUDDENLY
James E. McEvoy, geologist and mining engineer, of Ottawa, died at Corbin on Friday inst. from a heart attack. Deceased had been reporting on some phosphate claims about six or seven miles from Corbin.

The death of James McEvoy recalls the early days of Fernie when he was one of our leading citizens and an official of the Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Co. He was a very clever geologist and made a lot of early surveys of the Crow’s Nest Pass coal fields. Had the C.P.R. paid attention to his reports on the Hosmer coal property they would have been a million or so to the good, his report was that the coal seams at that point could not be mined profitably.

During the time he spent in Fernie he took an active interest in local affairs. He was Instrumental in the forming of two companies of the Kootenay Rifles and was appointed captain of A company.

He severed his connection with the C.N.P. Coal Co. about 1907 and took up his residence in Toronto and later on moved to Ottawa.

— Fernie Free Press, July 26, 1935 (9)

He was survived by his widow and one daughter, Dorothy Ray McEvoy. McEvoy was buried in Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa.

Frederick Talbot
Montreal Gazette

Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot [1880–1924]

b. 1880 — London, England
d. 1924 — Quebec, Canada

I was one of a party of six which set out from the western fringe of civilisation in Alberta to make the “North-West Passage” by land, threading 1,200 miles of wonderful, practically unknown country-the interior of New Caledonia, or, as it is now officially called, New British Columbia. The party consisted of Harry R. Charlton, Montreal ; Robert C. W. Lett, Winnipeg ; H. D. Lowry, Washington, U.S.A.; G. Horne Russell, Montreal; a photographer, and myself. The first and third left the party at Tête Jaune Cache to return. The object of my investigations was to form some notion of the economic and scenic value of the country traversed.

My best thanks are due to the Grand Trunk and Grand Trunk Pacific Railways for their valuable assistance in regard to facilities for making the journey and their courteous provision of the photographer, and for placing at my service the copyright photographs that embellish this volume; also to the hardy, hospitable frontiersmen and sourdoughs who, having themselves got in on the ground floor,” readily afforded me all possible information for the guidance of those who are bent upon wooing Fortune in a country which is being unlocked and rendered more accessible every day.

Stanley Washburn,1916
(Passport Application)
Find a Grave

Major Stanley Washburn, 1923
Library of Congress

Stanley Washburn [1878–1950]

b. 1878 — Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
d. 1950

Journalist. Was born at Minneapolis, Feb. 7, 1878; son of William Drew and Elizabeth M. (Muzzy) Washburn. Educated at Williams Colloge, Mass., class of 1901, also short time at the Harvard Law School. Received degrees: A.B.Honorary Member Japanese Red Cross Society: Decorated by Emperor of Japan with order of the Imperial Crown. Was in local journalism in Minneapolis from 1901 to Jan., 1904, serving as police reporter, market editor, Sunday editor and editorial writer. Went to the Far East and became special war correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, commanding their despatch boat Fawan for four months in front of Port Arthur, being twice captured by the Russians. Later jointed the Third Japanese Army under Nogi at the siege of Port Arthur. Covered a war scare in the Balkans, and in 1905 (Jan.) was at St. Petersburg for the Revolution. Rejoined Army in Manchuria, where he remained until end of hostilities. Commanded despatch boat France in the Black Sea during late fall of 1905, on the occasion of Russian Revolution, carrying dispatches and mails for four powers and bringing out cargo of refugees from Batuum, then in state of anarchy. Occasional contributor to magazines. Member Delta Psi Fraternity, Masons, Minneapolis Club, Commercial Club and numerous other organizations.

Buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, USA, tombstone inscribed:
“Major, U. S. Army, Lt. Col. Military Intelligence Reserves.”

Author of several books, including Trails, Trappers and Tenderfeet in the New Empire of Western Canada, chronicling trips in the Yellowhead Pass area in 1901 and 1909. Stanley’s friend psychologist Lydiard Horton, his classmate at Williams, was the “Mountain Philosopher” of Trails Trappers and Tenderfeet.

John Norman Collie [1859–1942]

b. 1859 — Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England
d. 1942 — Sligachan, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Collie was a chemist and mountaineer who lived at London, England. Between 1897 and 1911, Collie pioneered climbing in the Canadian Rockies, making twenty-one first ascents including Mount Victoria and Mount Athabasca.

Elizabeth Parker [1856–1944]

b. 1856 — Colchester County, Nova Scotia
d. 1944 — Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Parker was a Canadian journalist in the early 1900s. She attended school in Truro, Nova Scotia, obtained her teaching certificate, married Henry John Parker at the age of 18, moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then to Winnipeg. She co-founded the Alpine Club of Canada in 1906 with Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945].

Hugh Edward Millington Stutfield [1858–1929]

b. 1858 — Turriff, county of Banff, Scotland
d. 1929

Stutfield was a solicitor, an alpine climber, and an author. He accompanied John Norman Collie [1859–1942] on some of his trips to Canada. Stutfield’s talent as a first-rate marksman saved the party from starvation on many an occasion.

He is listed in Foster’s Men-at-the-Bar (p. 453):

Stutfield, Hugh Edward Millington, B.A., Trin. Coll., Camb., 1881, a student of the Inner Temple 12 April, 1880 (then aged 22), called to the bar 17 Nov., 1884 (3rd son of William Stutfield, of Turriff, N.B.); born 1858.

which volume also contains this fragment about Stutfield’s elder brother:

… 1881 (2nd son of William Stutfield, Esq., of Netherdale, Turriff, co. Banff); born y – 19, Old Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn, W.C.

The location Turriff, county Banff, “N.B.”, presumably refers to “North Britain”, or Scotland, as it was sometime called. Netherdale is the name of the particular dwelling, still extant.

The three adventurers associated with the discovery of the Columbia Icefield were Hugh Millington Stutfield, Hermann Woolley and John Norman Collie. Stutfield was a wealthy British stockbroker who through careful and considered investment was able to retire early from the London Stock Exchange and pursue his interest in travel. He was also a crack shot with a rifle and shotgun, a talent that later allowed him to save his fellow climbers from a difficult predicament in Canada with respect to supplies. It was this same talent, however, that caused him to be hunting instead of climbing when the full extent of the Columbia Icefield was discovered in 1898.

— Sandford

James Alexander Walker
Corporation of BCLS, 1956

James Alexander Walker [1887–1959]

b. 1887 — Guelph, Ontario
d. 1959 — Vancouver, British Columbia

James Alexander (Sandy) Walker was educated in Guelph Public Schools and Collegiate Institute and at the University of Toronto from which he obtained a diploma in civil engineering in 1908, a bachelor in applied science in 1910 and a post-graduate degrec of a civil engineer in 1926.

In 1911-1912 he was employed by the Surveyor-General of B.C. as chief examiner of survey notes. In April, 1912, Walker obtained the commission as a British Columbia Land Surveyor.

In 1912, 1913, and 1914 he was in charge of a B.C. Government land survey party along the Fraser River upstream from Prince George during the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.

In 1915 Walker entered private practice in Civil Engineering and Surveying, but he gave up this work to enlist with the C.E.F.. In 1916 he trained in the first course given by the Royal School of Infantry in Esquimalt, B.C. He received his commission as Lieutenant in the 72nd Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and trained with a Yukon Infantry Company 225th Battalion. Being refused for overseas service, he was transferred to the Canadian Field Artillery with headquarters in Ottawa.

After 1919 Walker established a private practice in Vancouver and subsequently served on planning commissions in that city.

Conrad Kain [1883–1934]

b. 1883 — Nasswald, Austria
d. 1934 — Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada

Kain was an Austrian mountain guide who guided extensively in Europe, Canada, and New Zealand, and was responsible for the first ascents of more than 60 routes in British Columbia. He is particularly known for pioneering climbs in the Purcell Mountains and the first ascents of Mount Robson (1913), Mount Louis (1916) and Bugaboo Spire (1916).

A. L. Mumm and guide Moritz Inderbinen. Mount Robson Camp on Snowbird Pass.
Photo by Frank W. Freeborn, 1913
Canadian Alpine Journal 1915

Arnold Louis Mumm [1859–1927]

b. 1859 — London, England
d. 1927 — Bay of Biscay, Atlantic Ocean

Mumm, a London publisher, first came to Canada in 1909, at the invitation of Alpine Club of Canada director Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945]. After attending the 1909 ACC camp at Lake O’Hara, Mumm, along with Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery [1873–1955], Geoffrey Hastings [1860–1941], and Moritz Inderbinen [1856–1926], made an attempt on Mount Robson. On their way to the mountain, they met George R. B. Kinney [1872–1961], who reported that he and Donald “Curly” Phillips [1884–1938] had been successful on their own attempt (a claim later disputed). Mumm’s party, hobbled by difficulties of the route and lack of time, was not successful.

Mumm returned with British professor John Norman Collie [1859–1942] in July, 1910, when the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway’s steel had been laid as far as Wolf Creek, about one hundred miles east of theYellowhead Pass. The party spent some time about Mount Robson, but there was so much snow on the mountains and the weather was so stormy that climbing was out of the question, and they were able to ascend only some of the lesser peaks.

The next summer, 1911, Collie and Mumm made another trip, the first to go north of the Athabasca to explore and climb. They ascended the Stoney River, crossed a high pass to the Smoky River, then up Glacier Creek, which they ascended to Mount Bess.

In 1913 Mumm decided to climb Mount Geikie, which three years earlier, when on Yellowhead Mountain, he had seen rising far above its fellows. He was turned back by a storm. Mumm made many climbs in the Alps, Canada, Japan and New Zealand, in addition to accompanying Tom George Longstaff [1875–1964] to the Himalayas.

Pierre Bostonais dit “Tête Jaune” [d. 1827]

d. 1827

“Tête Jaune” (“Yellow Head”) was the nickname of Pierre Bostonais [d. 1827], an Iroquois who worked for the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company fur trading companies, renowned for his “cache” (French for a hiding place). During the fur trade, a cache was built by removing a round piece of turf about eighteen inches across, excavating the dirt, and lining the excavation with dry branches. After the cached goods were inserted, some earth and the round piece of turf were put on top, and the surplus earth all carefully removed.

According to Milton and Cheadle, who passed through the Yellowhead Pass in 1863, Bostonais’s original cache was at the confluence of the Robson River and Fraser River. The present location of Tête Jaune Cache is near the site selected during the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, at the head of navigation on the Fraser River.

“Bostonais” was a name applied by Indigenous people to Americans of European descent, “Boston Men.” Normally a nickname, Pierre Bostonais may have acquired it as a family name after his family moved from American territory to the Montreal area. (As early as 1670, a number of Iroquois, converted by French priests, left what is now New York State to live near Montreal.) Iroquois were brought out west by the fur trade companies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as voyageurs, hunters, guides, and trappers. Many Iroquois stayed in the west when their contracts with the fur companies expired, settling east of the Rockies between the Athabasca and Peace Rivers.

Pierre Bostonais first appears in the archives of the Hudson’s Bay Company in January 1805, when the factor at the fur trading post of St. Croix (now in Minnesota) wrote, “This afternoon Tête Jaune’s son expired after a long and painful malady of upwards of three months.” In 1810 Tête Jaune was for a time employed by the North West Company, perhaps arriving at Rocky Mountain House, on the North Saskatchewan River. By 1816, when he is mentioned in the North West Company ledger, Tête Jaune was a “free” Iroquois, not engaged to any fur trade company. Twice in Hudson’s Bay Company books from 1821 to 1823 there are entries of “Pierre Bostonais dit Tête Jaune.”

Colin Robertson [1783–1842], in charge of Fort St. Mary (near the present-day town of Peace River, British Columbia), recorded in his journal for December 1819, “Tête Jaune, the free Iroquois, has given me a chart of that country across the Rocky Mountains.” Tête Jaune guided a party across the mountains the next spring and returned at the end of October. “Tête Jaune and Brother Baptiste arrived — the Iroquois all enjoyed themselves with a booze.” Tête Jaune and Baptiste appear again in 1825, when the Hudson’s Bay Company required a guide over the Yellowhead Pass, then a little-known route. (There is no record that this pass was used by either company prior to 1824, when chief trader Joseph Felix LaRocque tried to establish a post at “Moose or Cranberry Lake.”)

In 1825, Hudson’s Bay Company governor George Simpson ordered chief trader James McMillan to explore the pass. At Jasper House, McMillan hired Tête Jaune as guide. They left Jasper House on 18 October, and by October 24, after a trip of about 120 miles, reached Tête Jaune Cache. In his report to William Connolly, McMillan specifically mentioned “Tête Jaune’s Cache,” the first recorded reference to this place name.

Tête Jaune probably spent the winter of 1825-26 at Fort Alexandria, on the Fraser River north of Quesnel. In early May 1826, just before the departure of the fur brigade from Fort St. James for Fort Vancouver, Connolly received word about the “Iroquois guide who remains sick at Alexandria.”

In early November 1826, Tête Jaune and Baptiste arrived at Fort St. James. “In the evening that old rogue Tête Jaune, and his brother, arrived from below, dread of the Carriers who threaten vengeance for the death of their relatives, is the cause of their coming this way. These people brought nearly one Pack of Beaver between them.”

Tête Jaune and Baptiste apparently spent the winter of 1826–27 with the indigenous Carriers. The brothers returned to Fort St. James in mid-April. Connolly wrote, “I never saw two more wretched beings in my life — since the Fall they have not Killed one Marten between them. They are however good Beaver Trappers & being well furnished with Traps they may perhaps do well — But they are such notorious rascals that no dependence whatever Can be placed in them.” That fall, the brothers were at Bear Lake (Fort Connelly). “I am glad this district is rid of them,” wrote Connolly. “They are brothers who seldom do any good. And very frequently do Mischief.”

In the spring of 1828 word reached Connolly that Tête Jaune, Baptiste, and their families had been “cut off by the Beaver Indians, as a punishment for Hunting upon their lands.” Connolly wrote that “this Melancholy Occurrence took place last fall at Finlay’s Branch, but by whom perpetrated could not be ascertained — The natives throughout the District have for a long While past looked upon the Iroquois as Robbers and despoilers of their lands, and it is only in Consideration for us that they have not long before this taken the only means in their power to rid themselves of their depredators.”