The first attempted ascent was at the Alpine Club of Canada’s special mountaineering camp at Mount Robson in 1913. The Swiss guide Walter Schauffelberger [1881–1915] led Basil Stewart Darling [1885–1962] and Harley H. Prouty [ca. 1857-1916] to within 400 feet of the summit, but they were turned back by lack of time in an approaching storm.

The first ascent was in 1955, by Don Claunch, Harvey Firestone, and Mike Sherrick

“Up, up we toiled, winding round crags, in and out piles of windfall, over hummocks of rocks, through furiously boiling creeks and innocent-looking muskegs…. All topics of conversation had long been exhausted; dead timber and a windfall-strewn trail, with their pitfalls and dangers, are not conducive to comment, except of a querulous character. ” Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot [1880–1924] wasn’t referring to this creek, but almost every early traveller to the region had to fight windfall.

Origin of the name unknown.

William Olexiuk

The addition to the McBride and District Hospital, built in1988, was named after William Olexiuk [1918–1988], who was born at Vilna, Alberta, to Sam and Anne Olexiuk of the Ukraine. In 1934, Olexiuk started working in logging camps in Alberta. In 1940, he married Helen Semeluk of Vilna. In 1945, Bill and Helen moved to Valemont, where he worked in the logging and hauling businesses. He was a member of the McBride and District Hospital Board since its formation in 1954. Olexiuk served terms as president of the Valemount Red Cross and the Valemount Community Association. He was active in the Yellowhead Highway Association in the 1950s.

Location approximate. Origin of the name unknown.

The BC Geographical Names office says the name was “adopted in 1925 as labelled on BC map 3H, 1919.” However, Pre-emptor’s map Tête Jaune 3H 1919 does not appear to include this name.

“Whiteshield Mountain” does appear on Boundary Commission Sheet 33. The Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission surveyed the area in 1923.

Origin of the name unknown.

Mt. Whitehorn is a very striking feature, owing to the precipitous rock ramparts, like mighty walls, that stretch out from it to the Grand Fork Valley. It is surrounded by glaciers, but it is not very white and does not convey the impression of a horn.”

— Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] [1]

Elizabeth Parker [1856–1944] says it is so called “from some twoscore waterfalls shining like silver or foaming white down vertical purple cliffs on either side.” [2]

George R. B. Kinney [1872–1961] discovered this sharp conical peak in 1907, calling it “Mt. Turner.” [3] Kinney accompanied Arthur Philemon Coleman [1852–1939, who in 1907 or 1908 referred to it as “The White Horn; ” Coleman’s 1910 map of Mount Robson has it labeled as “White Horn Mt.”

It was first climbed by Conrad Kain [1883–1934] in 1911 during the Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition. Kain stashed a summit note in his match-holder; “I wrapped this in a handkerchief and put it in the stone-man. For greater precaution I laid a few stones together underneath an overhanging rock that protected this second stone-man from avalanches; because I knew that people would not believe that I had reached the summit.” [4]

Kain’s account includes the note that at the 1913 Alpine Club of Canada special camp at Mount Robson, “Walter Schauffelberger’s party returned from Whitehorn, bringing the matchbox and the paper with Conrad’s signature. It was found twenty or thirty feet below the summit,” an incident not mentioned in Schauffelberger’s own account. [5]

This mountain was a camera station during the Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission survey in 1921.