The earliest known description of Mount Robson is found in the journal of John M. Sellar. Sellar was an “Overlander,” members of parties of gold-seekers bound for the Cariboo. Sellar’s party passed the peak on August 26, 1862. “At 4 pm we passed Snow or Cloud Cap Mountain which is the highest and finest on the whole Leather Pass. it is 9000 feet above the level of the valley at its base, and the guide told us that out of 29 times that he had passed it he had only seen the top once before.”
Eleven months after the passage of John Sellar, on July 14, 1863, Viscount Milton and Dr. W.B. Cheadle passed the mountain in the course of their overland journey of adventure to the Pacific Coast. Their book contains the earliest known description of Mount Robson by name.
See Clemina.
In September 1913, newlyweds Clemina Pearl (Cox) (born ca. 1890) and Charles Wilfrid Buckle came to Thompson Crossing, where Charles was construction engineer for the Canadian Northern Railway. From her home in Vancouver in 1983, Clemina Buckle wrote, “There had been eleven brides in there and each one had something named after her. My husband drew the maps. He named two places after me. I have never been back but look upon those two years as the happiest of my life.”
Clemina (Station) adopted by the BC Geographical Names Office in 1961 as labelled on BC map 3J, 1917, and on 1950 edition of 83/SW. Rescinded 15 December 1989.
“Clairvaux Mountain” adopted in Place Names of Alberta, 1928. Form of name changed to Mount Clairvaux in 1976, as originally labelled on BC-Alberta Boundary sheet 29, 1917.
Intended to express its situation at the head of a “clear valley.”
In 1911, Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] named this mountain Little Grizzly Peak “on account of its resemblance, on a small scale, to Mount Grizzly in the Selkirks.” Cinnamon is a coloration of the grizzly bear.
The well-known Cinnamon family of Robson Valley did not arrive in the area until the 1950s.
“Chushina” is a Stoney word signifying “small” and was thought to be descriptive of this ridge when members of a 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition named this feature.
[From the crest of Phillips Mountain] a glacier slopes down for a mile and a half to the edge of the cliffs west of Snowbird Pass. It is such a fine example of a small and complete glacier from névé to foot that I think it worthy of the name Chushina.
— Charles Doolittle Walcott [1850–1927]
Walcott applied his name to the glacier, but now it applies to the ridge.
“Chushina Ridge” is listed at Indigenous Geographical Names dataset as a word of undetermined language.
From the crest of Phillips Mountain “a glacier slopes down for a mile and a half to the edge of the cliffs west of Snowbird Pass. It is such a fine example of a small and complete glacier from névé to foot that I think it worthy of the name Chushina,” wrote Charles Doolittle Walcott [1850–1927] after his 1912 reconnaissance of the Robson region.
The name was adopted in 1962 as submitted by mountaineer Gertrude Smith. “This is a ridge with 5 peaks … chilkst is the Shuswap word for 5.”
John Leslie Charles, 1914
Wikipedia
This station on the Canadian National Railway is named for Major John Leslie Charles [1892–1992], long-time chief engineer of Canadian National Railway’s former western division in Winnipeg.
Charles was born in 1892 in Weybridge, Surrey, England, and moved to Winnipeg in 1910. He began working for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway survey party in their Mountain division. Except during the World War I, Charles worked on the Hudson Bay Railway until its completion at Churchill, Maitoba, in 1930. He then worked for the Canadian National Railway for 55 years, progressing to the position of chief engineer of the Western Region.
Charles served in both World Wars. During World War I, he was promoted to the rank of major and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. In World WarII, he recruited and commanded the 20th field company of the Royal Canadian Engineers. He also served with the American Army, surveying for a military railway connecting Alaska and Canada.