The Emperor Falls. Photo: Byron Harmon, 1911
Canadian Alpine Journal 1912

Emperor Falls, with Robson Peak above. Photo by R. C. W. Lett, courtesy of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 1913
National Geographic Magazine 1913

Emperor Falls
William James Topley, 1914
Library and Archives Canada

The 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition was led by Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945]. He wrote:

Below Berg Lake the Robson River enters a narrow rock canyon, and soon becomes a cascade, careening wildly down its bed and showing a great swirl of white water. Then comes a line of cliffs extending part way across the valley. Over this the river makes a grand and spectacular leap to a rock floor below, where it turns sharply to the left and pours madly though an extremely narrow box canyon which it has carved in the bed rock. The fall is magnificent and I know of no other of quite the same type. The total drop in 145 feet by aneroid barometer measurement. At a distance of 60 feet from the crest, the full volume of the water strikes a ledge and bounds outwards for 30 feet, creating a splendid rocket which gives the idea of a giant leap. There is such a feeling of majesty and power inspired by the spectacle that I christened it “The Emperor Falls.”

“Emerald Ridge” adopted in 1973 as agreed by British Columbia, not “Avalanche Ridge” as identified on earlier maps. The name is applied to the ridgeline, not the entire massif.

[the ridge] …is distinctive for its great areas of slide slopes, many of which are mantled with bright green deciduous growth.

— memo from BC Parks 1972, file C.1.62

Ella Frye, first registered female trapper, 1933
Valemount & Area Museum

Ella Frye [1907–1995] trapped on the North Thompson river for over 50 years. Ella was born at Red Deer, Alberta, while her family was moving west from North Dakota. In 1911 her parents Fred and Edith (Bronson) arrived at Tête Jaune Cache, and soon afterwards moved to Albreda. Grandfather Bronson started teaching her trapping when she was six years old. “It got into my blood and I kept at it,” Ella said. She married Tom Smith around 1926. In 1933, she started trapping on the North Thompson.

In 1971, according to a report in the local newspaper, she was “the only woman in the area who is a licensed trapper.” Among her siblings were brothers Mike (“Small Frye”) [1911–1988] and Jules [1916–1980] and sister Francis [Knutson].

Francis’s husband Louis Knutson said that he started the trap line on this creek in 1910 and after spending a few years away from the area gave it to Ella.

Harold Edwards owns the property at the end of the road. The portion of the road between the highway and the railway is also known as Legrand Access Road.

Edward Feuz Jr., Professor Charles Ernest Fay and Dr. Hickson standing in front of Fay Hut. August 1930.
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies

One of the peaks of Mount Lyell, named for guide Edward Feuz Jr. (1884-1981), a Canadian Pacific Railway mountain guide. Feuz was the son of one of the first Swiss Guides brought to Canada by the railway. He climbed at Field and Glacier House in 1903 with his father and guided during summers from 1905 to 1912, settling that year in the Edelweiss Village at Golden, British Columbia.

Until his retirement in the 1950s, he accompanied the finest climbers and was involved in over seventy first ascents of peaks over 3048 metres.

An eddy is a circular motion in water, a small whirlpool.

The Eddy Post Office was open from 1945 to 1947.