Category Archives: Place

Bad River (James Creek)

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British Columbia. Creek: Fraser River drainage
Flows SE into Herrick Creek
54.3 N 121.4333 W — Map 93I/6 — Google — GeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1793 (Mackenzie)
Name officially adopted in 1976
Official in BC – Topo map from Canadian Geographical Names
This creek appears on:
Mackenzie’s Tracks of 1789 and 1793 published 1803
BC Lands Central BC 1892
Brownlee’s map Province of BC 1893
Jörgensen Map Province of BC 1895
Cram’s map British Columbia 1913
Map of Mackenzie’s track in 1793 (detail of pass through Rocky Mountains)

Map of Mackenzie’s track in 1793 (detail of pass through Rocky Mountains) Internet Archive

Map showing Bad River, with the note “Canoe Wreck’d.” Also showing the height of land and the small lakes in the pass, now named Pacific Lake, Portage Lake, and Arctic Lake.

Alexander Mackenzie [1764–1820] travelled from his winter quarters at Fork Fort to the Pacific coast in 1793. On his return, travelling through the same unnamed pass through the Rocky Mountains that he traversed on his voyage out, he wrote in his journal:

Friday, 16 August, 1793. The weather continued to be the same as yesterday, and at two in the afternoon we came to the carrying-place which leads to the first small lake; but it was so filled with drift wood, that a considerable portion of time was employed in making our way through it. We now reached the high land which separates the source of the Tacoutche Tesse, or Columbia River, and Unjigah, or Peace River: the latter of which, after receiving many tributary streams, passes through the great Slave Lake, and disembogues itself in the Frozen Ocean, in latitude 69-1/2 North, longitude 135. West from Greenwich; while the former, confined by the immense mountains that run nearly parallel with the Pacific Ocean, and keep it in a Southern course, empties itself in 46. 20. North latitude and longitude 124. West from Greenwich [1].

Mackenzie was incorrect about Tacoutche Tesse being the Columbia River, it is the Fraser River.

Having persuaded one of the Sekanais to accompany them in the capacity of guide, Mackenzie and party reached (June 12, 1793) a lake two miles long, which was no other than the source of the Parsnip. After a portage of only 817 paces, they came to another lake, whence they entered a small stream which was to try sorely their patience, and which, for that reason, they called the “Bad River.”

— Morice 1904 [2]

The name “James Creek” was adopted in the 18th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 1924, not “Bad River”, the long-established local name. The name was changed to “Bad River (James Creek)” in 1976 to accommodate local usage, which dates to the earliest days of exploration in the northern Rocky Mountains.

Events pertinent to this place:

Also see

References:

  • 1. Mackenzie, Alexander [1764–1820]. Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Lawrence through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in the Years 1789 and 1793 with a Preliminary Account of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Fur Trade of That Country. London: T. Cadell, Jun., and W. Davies, 1803. Internet Archive [accessed 10 March 2025]
  • 2. Morice, Adrien-Gabriel [1859–1939]. The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia (formerly New Caledonia). Toronto: William Briggs, 1904. Gutenberg [accessed 20 March 2026]

Campion Mountain

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British Columbia. Mountain
S of Mount Robson
53.0528 N 119.1611 W — Map 083E03 — Google — GeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1978
Official in BC – Canada

On the alpine slopes of this mountain grow the pink-flowered (or is it blue?) moss campion, a circumpolar, mat-forming alpine plant of the genus Silene.

“Still higher up were several kinds of flowering mosses: the pink (moss campion), the white, and the yellow,” wrote explorer Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] in 1912.

Possibly named by the Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission, of which Wheeler was a member, in 1922.

References:

  • Wheeler, Arthur Oliver [1860–1945]. “The Alpine Club of Canada’s expedition to Jasper Park, Yellowhead Pass and Mount Robson region, 1911.” Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 4 (1912):9-80
  • Cautley, Richard William [1873–1953], and Wheeler, Arthur Oliver [1860–1945]. Report of the Commission appointed to delimit the boundary between the Provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Part II. 1917 to 1921. From Kicking Horse Pass to Yellowhead Pass.. Ottawa: Office of the Surveyor General, 1924. Whyte Museum
  • Cautley, Richard William [1873–1953], and Wheeler, Arthur Oliver [1860–1945]. Report of the Commission Appointed to Delimit the Boundary between the Provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Parts IIIA & IIIB, 1918 to 1924. From Yellowhead Pass Northerly. Ottawa: Office of the Surveyor General, 1925. Whyte Museum
Also see:

Campion Creek

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British Columbia. Creek: Fraser River drainage
Flows S into Moose River near headwaters
53.1833 N 118.9333 W — Map 83E/2 — Google — GeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1951
Official in BC – Canada
This creek appears on:
Boundary Commission Sheet 31 (surveyed in 1922)

The flowering plants bladder campion and alpine campion are indigenous to the Canadian Rockies.

This creek has also been labelled variously “Wall,” “Wallpass,” and “Treadmill” creek.

References:

Also see:

Camp Creek

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British Columbia. Creek: Columbia River drainage
Flows N into Canoe River
52.7653 N 119.2489 W — Map 083D14 — Google — GeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1919 (BC map 3H)
Name officially adopted in 1961
Official in BC – Topo map from Canadian Geographical Names

The camp was that of Canadian Pacific Railway surveyor Roderick M. McLennan [1805–1908] whose party wintered here in 1871–72.

Not associated with the famous Boat Encampment of David Thompson [1770–1857] (also known as Canoe Encampment).

References:

  • MacGregor, James Grierson [1905–1989]. Overland by the Yellowhead. Saskatoon: Western Producer, 1974. Internet Archive [accessed 3 March 2025]

Caledonia Mountain

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Alberta-BC boundary. Mountain
E of Moose Lake
52.9514 N 118.6522 W — Map 083D15 — Google — GeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1924
Official in BC – Topo map from Canadian Geographical Names
This mountain appears on:
Palliser map 1863
Boundary Commission Sheet 30 (surveyed in 1924) [as “Mt. Caledonia”]

The valley of the Miette River, over which Caledonia Mountain looms, was sometimes referred to as the Caledonian Valley during the fur trade era. “The afternoon proved that the valley is worthy of its old name Caledonian, if the name was meant to suggest the thistle of the ‘wha’ daur meddle wi’ me!’” wrote George Monro Grant [1835–1902] after his trip with Sandford Fleming [1827–1915] in 1872 [1].

“New Caledonia” was the name for the interior of British Columbia during the fur trade, a name given by Simon Fraser [1776–1862] because the country reminded him of his mother’s descriptions of her native Scotland. Caledonia is a Celtic word meaning “a dweller in woods and forests.”

Also see

References:

  • 1. Grant, George Monro [1835–1902]. Ocean to Ocean: Sandford Fleming’s Expedition through Canada in 1872. Being a Diary Kept During a Journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific with the Expedition of the Engineer-in-Chief of the Canadian Pacific and Intercolonial Railways. Toronto: James Campbell and Son, 1873. Google Books [accessed 13 November 2025]