“Bess Pass, 5,330 feet in altitude and Jackpine Pass, 6,694 feet, are on the route north [of Mount Robson] to Mt. Sir Alexander. The former is situated in very spectacular surroundings between Mt. Bess and Mt. Whiteshield: the latter is much frequented by grizzlies…” — Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945]

Origin of the name unknown.

I had said good-bye to my companions and alone started off in the storm to make my high camp. I crossed the gravel bed of the Robson Divide, then scrambled for another mile over the great rocks that strewed the shores of Berg Lake. The short day was nearly done by the time I had passed over the rock-strewn floor of the valley below the lake and bridged its turbulent river; then, for more than two thousand feet, I packed my load of blankets and instruments to a shelf on the cliffs, in mid air.

Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] explored the Mount Robson area with a large party in 1911:

From the elevated ice-field, fed by avalanching snows from the sides of Robson, a gigantic ice cascade tumbles down rock precipices and buries its nose in the waters of Berg Lake. At frequent intervals great chunks of ice break off with a report like cannon, and, bonding and rattling down the steep incline, plunge into the clear water of the lake. I have seen one of these enormous ice-blocks send a spout of water fully twenty feet into the air, while the waves caused by the upheaval wash to the farther shore. The incessant ice-falls soon fill the lake with floating blocks which drift hither and thither as the wind directs. Imagine a lake a mile-and-a-half long, three-quarters of a mile wide, of prefect turquoise-blue, filling the whole width of the valley floor, its surface dotted thickly with miniature icebergs, showing snow white against it.

Canadian Pacific Railway surveyor Henry Purden Bell [c. 1841–1910] passed the winter of 1875-76 surveying the Fraser River above Fort George. Born in County Atrim, Ireland, Bell was a civil engineer and pioneer surveyor and miner in British Columbia. It’s possible this mountain was named after him, although the name doesn’t appear on early maps.

Some say that Bell Mountain was named in the 1960s because of its resemblance to a bell. The BC Geographical Names office says the name refers to its shape. It was also known as Mount Baldy.

In 1988, McBride Village Council received a development proposal for a ski hill on the mountain, to be called “Belle.” Council endorsed the historic spelling “Bell” in 1992, but as of 2020, a sign for “Belle Mountain Ski Area” appears at the foot of Bell Mountain Road.

The pass was named by members of the expedition of Mary Lenore Jobe Akeley [1878–1966] and Donald “Curly” Phillips [1884–1938] to Mount Kitchi (Mount Sir Alexander) in 1914.

From Jones Pass we cut our way through dense woods down a steep declivity to broad open muskeg on the West Branch of the Jack Pine. After traveling about six miles through this meadow we came to a low pass, 5,300 feet, filled with beaver dams and houses. We named this pass Beaver Dam Pass. It separates Fraser and Peace waters.

“The name is due to evidence of beaver-dams and houses seen at the time of their exploration in 1914,” wrote boundary surveyor Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945]. “No signs of beavers were now seen around the small tarn close to the summit of the pass on the Alberta side of the watershed, or in the small stream flowing from it. They seem to have either been trapped out or to have left the locality.” Beaverdam Pass was a camera station on the survey, which worked through the Yellowhead Pass in 1917.

The first thing [Bill and Mort Teare] heard on reaching the settlements was that the Yellowhead Pass was the route finally selected by the survey [for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.
Not in the least discouraged, they went to work trapping that winter and snaring wild horses for their pack-train, and when the snow was off the mountains, they were at it again, this time working the side streams of the Fraser valley. On the Beaver, they had located an enormous ledge of quartz, and it was to look at this ledge that we had come.

— Washburn 1910 [1]

Surveyor and Alpine Club of Canada president Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] wrote of the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition:

The wide valley of the Big Smoky could be seen for many miles and, between Mt. Bess and the great white mountain, a large tributary valley which leads across the Continental Divide at its head to the Beaver River, a tributary of the Fraser. Donald Phillips, who, with Konrad Kain, spent part of the past winter (1911-12) trapping and exploring in the locality, writes me: “We did a lot of exploring this winter up in that country and found two more passes to the Stony River, but they are too rough at present to go over with horses. We also discovered two passes from the Smoky to the Beaver River, that flows into the Fraser. The Beaver River is about forty miles long.”

— Wheeler 1911 [2]