Category Archives: Place

Hargreaves Glacier

British Columbia. Glacier: Fraser River drainage
NW of Berg Lake
53.1683 N 119.2067 W — Map 83E/3 — GoogleGeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1982
Official in BCCanada
The Hargreaves Brothers: Frank, Roy, George, (unknown), Jack, (unknown), 1922-1930, Mount Robson. Credit: Ishbel Cochrane.

The Hargreaves Brothers: Frank, Roy, George, (unknown), Jack, (unknown), 1922-1930, Mount Robson. Credit: Ishbel Cochrane.
Valemount & Area Museum

Roy Frederick Hargreaves (1891–1971) founded Mount Robson Ranch and built the Berg Lake Chalet. He and brothers Frank (1885–1940), Jack (1895–1971), George (1883–1936) and Dick (1908–1987) homesteaded at Mount Robson after World War I. For many years, they were well-known guides and outfitters in the Mount Robson area.

Their parents Edward (1846–1939) and Matilda (1852–1904) moved to Oregon from England in 1881, but soon immigrated to Canada “to live under the British flag.” After Matilda died, the family was frequently on the move. George and Roy were the first to leave home, and in 1905 they helped cut a trail from Golden to Tête Jaune Cache.

Jack came to Jasper in the winter of 1913–14 to play hockey. The next summer he started working for the Otto Brothers outfitters, and in the winter of 1917, accompanied Donald “Curly” Phillips [1884–1938] and Mary Jobe on their trip to the Wapiti and Mount Sir Alexander area. Mary Jobe wrote, “Phillips had an assistant, Jack Hargreaves, a strong, manly young fellow, willing in every emergency, and always good tempered. I have rarely had a more unselfish companion on the trail.”

Roy, Frank, and Jack served in the Canadian Army in the World War I. Roy survived the first gas attack on Canadian forces, but he spent many months in a British hospital. Edward and Matilda’s daughter Myrtle married and stayed in Jasper, and daughter Ethel married and moved to Iowa.

In 1921, Jack and Frank filed on homesteads near Mount Robson. With an eye towards the tourist business, they erected several log buildings and a small store. They were soon joined by George and later by Roy. The four brothers began to outfit and guide hunting parties, using about 70 head of horses and concentrating on the Berg Lake area. Although they carried on business under the name of Hargreaves Brothers, each maintained his own separate part of the pack string and his share of the equipment. In 1922, Jack married Jasper teacher Gladys Guild (1897–1985). The following year he moved back to Jasper, where he operated a guiding and outfitting business, having up to 85 horses on the trail at one time. Both he and Hargreaves Brothers operated separately for many years.

In 1923, Roy married Sophia MacLean (1892-1991), a school teacher from Cape Breton working in Jasper. That same year, Edward pre-empted a homestead at Mount Robson, a couple of miles from the ranch. In 1924, George, Frank and Jack rebuilt Curly Phillips’s trail to Kinney Lake. In 1926, George filed on land close to Jackman Flats. Frank later took an adjoining homestead, and they all kept guiding and outfitting. Dick married Alice Couture, and after a short stay at Jackman, they moved to Jasper where was a carpenter for the park and the railway. George died on the trail.

The “CN Cabins” which the brothers built near Robson Pass in 1921 were operated by the Hargreaves for several years, until Roy obtained a lease on five acres of land on Berg Lake. In 1927, he built the Berg Lake Chalet, a tourist facility which provided meals and accommodation for over 50 years. Chuck Chesser, who had been working for Roy since about 1926, became a partner in 1931, the same year that he married Sophia’s sister Anne Maclean. “Chesser and Hargreaves, Guides and Outfitters” lasted until the late 1940s, when Chesser went to work for the Canadian National Railway. Roy raised beaver, farmed fox for several years, tried mink for one year, and couldn’t get marten to breed. During the war he got rid of the foxes and ran a sawmill at Tête Jaune Cache with Harry Partridge.

Frank was murdered at his cabin at Jackman in 1940. In 1951, Arthur Cunningham admitted to murdering a man at Endako, and before he was hanged, also claimed to have shot Frank Hargreaves.

In 1959, Roy sold the ranch to Alice Wright, who named it the Mount Robson Ranch. Roy and Sophia moved to Ladysmith, returning to visit Mount Robson several times a year. Sophia made regular trips to Berg Lake until 1976, when she was 84. In 1977, when the Berg Lake Chalet was closed, she made her last trip, by helicopter. In 1988, she was living at a senior citizens’ lodge in Salmon Arm. The operation of Mount Robson Ranch was taken over by Roy and Sophia’s daughter Myrtle Mae Ishbel Hargreaves and her husband Murray Cochrane.

References:

  • Jobe Akeley, Mary Lenore [1878–1966]. “A winter journey to Mt. Sir Alexander and the Wapiti.” Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 9 (1918):58-65
  • Cochrane, Myrtle Mae Ishbel (Hargreaves) [1924–]. Jasper-Yellowhead Museum & Archives. Fonds JAS-2636 (1920–1955). Archives Society of Alberta
  • Cochrane, Myrtle Mae Ishbel (Hargreaves) [1924–]. Cochrane and Hargreaves. 1970. Valemount & Area Museum
  • Wheeler, Marilyn. The Robson Valley Story. McBride, B.C.: Robson Valley Story Group, 1979
  • Hart, Edward John “Ted” [1946–]. Diamond hitch: the early outfitters and guides of Banff and Jasper. Banff: Summerthought, 1979
  • Valemount Historic Society. Yellowhead Pass and its People. Valemount, B.C.: 1984

Hankins Creek

British Columbia. Creek: Fraser River drainage
Flows NE into Fraser River, SE of McBride
53.2667 N 120.1167 W — Map 93H/8 — GoogleGeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1965
Official in BCCanada

Formerly called “No Name Creek,” settler Hankins put down his own name when he filed for water rights.

References:

  • Wheeler, Marilyn [1932–2016]. The Robson Valley Story. McBride, B.C.: Robson Valley Story Group, 1979
Also see:

Haggard Glacier

British Columbia. Glacier
E of Mount Rider, near head of Hellroaring Creek
53.5667 N 120.4167 W — Map 093H09 — GoogleGeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1969
Official in BCCanada
Henry Rider Haggard circa 1905

Henry Rider Haggard circa 1905

British novelist Henry Rider Haggard [1856–1925] passed through the area by train in 1916, on a tour of the Commonwealth investigating prospects for settling war veterans.

Also see:

Haan Road

Feature type: road
Province: British Columbia
Location: Intersects Hwy 16 E of Dunster
Latitude: 53.14440 N
Longitude: 119.8095 W
Google Maps

1963 portrait of Robert P. Haan, who was the chairman of the McBride and District Hospital Board of Directors.

1963 portrait of Robert P. Haan, who was the chairman of the McBride and District Hospital Board of Directors.
Valley Museum & Archives Society

Robert Phillip Haan (1901–1976) and Leola (Rankin) arrived in Dunster from Alberta in 1943, along with their son Robert Desmond Haan (1928–1980) and four brothers and sisters. Robert Desmond Haan was born on the family farm near Provost, Alberta. With his English-born wife Betty (Sargent) (b. 1932) and their children, he operated a beef farm in Dunster. When Bob was killed in a tractor accident, the farm was sold and his family moved to Kelowna. Bob was active in the Dunster Farmers’ Institute, the Dunster 4-H Club, the Community Hall Association, square dancing, and sports.

His mother Leola Haan writes, “Now little is left of his years of work. Even the beautiful house he built himself for his family is sold and moved away. Sagging fences, weedy field corners, a few farm out-buildings, and neglected fruit trees aren’t much of a memento for over thirty-two years of hard work and endeavor. But there still remains a memory no one can subdue, a memory of a busy, happy, progressive, ambitious family who once lived at the end of this road.”

References:

  • Wheeler, Marilyn. The Robson Valley Story. McBride, B.C.: Robson Valley Story Group, 1979

Gunboat Mountain

British Columbia. Mountain
Premier Range, S of Tête Creek
52.8128 N 119.6306 W — Map 083D13 — GoogleGeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1924
Name officially adopted in 1962
Official in BCCanada
This mountain appears on:
W. A. D. Munday’s map Cariboos 1925 [as Gunboat Ridge]

In July 1925, Walter Alfred Don Munday [1890–1950] and Phyllis Munday [1894–1990] made an expedition into the Cariboo Range. Two parties of climbers had preceded them: Edward Willet Dorland Holway [1853–1923] and Andrew James Gilmour [1871–1941] in 1916; and Allen Carpé [1894–1932] and Rollin Thomas Chamberlin [1881–1948] in 1924.

The latter party made two major climbs, the first ascents of Mt. Titan (11,850 ft.) and Mt. Challenger (10,900 ft.). They also climbed three minor mountains: Gunboat (10,000 ft.); a shoulder of Mt. Titan which they called Bivouac Peak (10,150 ft.) and a triple summit (10,250 ft.), which Mr. Munday refers to as Holway’s Peak, he having made the first ascent of its northerly summit. (The elevation and other names are Mr. Carpé’s.)

— Munday
References:

  • Munday, Walter Alfred Don [1890–1950]. “In the Cariboo Range – Mt. David Thompson.” Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 15 (1925):130-136

Guilford station

British Columbia. Railway Point
On Canadian National Railway, NE of junction ofSlim Creek and Fraser River
53.8167 N 121.2 W — Map 93H/14 — GoogleGeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1911 (GTP map)
Name officially adopted in 1958
Not currently an official name
154 miles west of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
Mile 66 in Fraser Subdivision (McBride to Prince George as of 1977)

Established as a flag station on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway four
miles east of Penny.

No agent or local residents in 1918, according to Wrigley’s.

Although the Grand Trunk Pacific had built a station at Guilford, the community of Guilford evolved two miles west of the station. That location was where the river and the railroad tracks met, both being vital transportation links. The name was quite possibly chosen from the Josiah Wedgwood list of names. Guilford is the name of a village in the county of Surrey, England, which is now spelt Guildford.

— Olson, p. 92

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wagner left for Edmonton, the community of Guilford lost its last resident and another ghost town was created. Everything has been shipped out of the once thriving sawmill village.

Prince George Citizen, November 1956 (quoted in Olson)

According to the BC Geographical Names office, the name Guilford was suggested by Mr. Smithers (OBF 0047). Adopted in 1958. confirmed in 1983, and rescinded in 1984.

References:

  • Wrigley Directories, Limited. Wrigley’s British Columbia Directory. Vancouver: 1918. Internet Archive
  • CN (Canadian National Railway). Transportation planning branch, Edmonton, and historical office, Montréal. 2000
  • Olson, Raymond W. Ghost Towns on the East Line. Prince George, B.C.: Raymond W. Olson, 2017
  • British Columbia Geographical Names. Guilford
Also see:

Groeneveld trail

Feature type: trail
Province: British Columbia
Location: Holliday Creek

Henry (born 1916) and Min (born 1921) Groeneveld and two children moved to Dunster from Holland in 1949. After working for two years for their sponsor, McBride postmaster George Long, they bought a farm in Dunster and started a dairy, which they operated until their retirement in 1975. They were the first in Dunster to ship fluid milk to Prince George, in 1950. Henry remembers spending thousands of hours in the Dunster station, waiting for the train.

References:

  • Personal correspondence.