Category Archives: Place

Moose Pass

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Alberta-BC boundary. Pass
Fraser River and Mackenzie River drainages
Headwaters of Moose River and Calumet Creek
53.2333 N 119.0167 W — Map 83E/3 — Google — GeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1911 (Walcott)
Name officially adopted in 1956
Official in BC – Canada
This pass appears on:
Wheeler’s map Mount Robson 1912
Phillips’s map NW of Robson 1915
Boundary Commission Sheet 31 (surveyed in 1922)
Boundary Commission Sheet 32 (surveyed in 1922 &1924)
View of Moose Pass and Tah Peak: our camp was in the forest on the right. Photo by R. C. W. Lett, by courtesy of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

View of Moose Pass and Tah Peak: our camp was in the forest on the right. Photo by R. C. W. Lett, by courtesy of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
National Geographic Magazine 1913

“As we crossed the beautiful Moose Pass on the Coleman trail of 1908 (6,700 feet = 2,042 meters), I noted that the pass was on the line of a fault that had displaced and tilted up a great block of limestones and shales,” wrote Charles Doolittle Walcott [1850–1927] during the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition to Mount Robson.

The Coleman trail was established by Arthur Philemon Coleman [1852–1939] on his unsuccessful attempts to climb Mount Robson in 1907 and 1908.

“Moose Pass station” appears on the 1912 topographical map of the Mount Robson region by surveyor Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945]

References:

  • Coleman, Arthur Philemon [1852–1939]. The Canadian Rockies: New and Old Trails. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1911. Internet Archive
  • 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
  • Wheeler, Arthur Oliver [1860–1945]. “Topographical Map Showing Mount Robson and Mountains of the Continental Divide North of Yellowhead Pass to accompany the Report of the Alpine Club of Canada’s Expedition 1911. From Photographic Surveys by Arthur O. Wheeler; A.C.C. Director.” Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 4 (1912):8-81
  • Walcott, Charles Doolittle [1850–1927]. “The monarch of the Canadian Rockies.” National Geographic Magazine, (1913):626. Internet Archive
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Moose Lake

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British Columbia. Lake: Fraser River drainage
Expansion of Fraser River, Mount Robson Park
52.95 N 118.9167 W — Map 83D/15 — Google — GeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1824 (Simpson)
Name officially adopted in 1933
Official in BC – Topo map from Canadian Geographical Names
28 miles west of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
This lake appears on:
John Arrowsmith’s map BC 1859
Milton and Cheadle’s map 1865
Trutch’s map of BC 1871
George Monro Grant’s map of Yellowhead Pass 1872
Tolmie and Dawson map Indian Tribes of BC 1884
BC Lands Central BC 1892
Brownlee’s map Province of BC 1893
McEvoy’s map Yellowhead Pass 1900
Coleman’s map of Mount Robson 1910
Schäffer map of visits in 1907 and 1908
Collie’s map Yellowhead Pass 1912
Cram’s map British Columbia 1913
Moose Lake. Benjamin F. Baltzly, 1871

Moose Lake. Benjamin F. Baltzly, 1871
McCord Stewart Museum


Moose Lake. Photo: Mary Schäffer, 1908

Moose Lake. Photo: Mary Schäffer, 1908
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies

Among the 180 or so Moose Lakes in Canada, the Moose Lake in Mount Robson Park was mentioned by Hudson’s Bay Company governor George Simpson [1792–1860] in 1824 when, “to draw the Freemen further into the Mountain than they had been in the habit of going,” he proposed to establish a winter fur trading post at “Moose or Cranberry Lake.” (Cranberry Lake is south of Tête Jaune Cache.) In the fall of that year, chief trader Joseph Felix LaRocque set out to establish the post as a replacement for the post at Smoky River, but was stopped by ice in the Athabasca River and built a post above Jasper House. No fur-trade establishment was ever built at Moose Lake.

“Orignal” is Canadian French for “moose. ” On John Arrowsmith’s 1859 map of British Columbia, Moose Lake appears as “Lac L’Original” [sic].

British tourists Milton and Cheadle passed by the lake in 1863:

Moose Lake is a fine sheet of water, about 15 miles in length, and not more than three miles in breadth at the widest point, The scenery was very wild and grand, and forcibly reminded us of Wast Water. On the south side, the hills rose perpendicularly out of the water for perhaps 2,000 feet, beyond which was the usual background of rocky and hoary peaks. Over the edge of this mighty precipice a row of silver streams poured with unbroken fall, the smaller ones dissipated in mist and spray ere they reached the lake below.

During the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway around 1910, “Mile 28’’ was the camp at the west end of Moose Lake, close to the current Red Pass Junction.

BC Parks has bathymetric maps of Moose Lake showing a maximum depth of about 80 m (275 feet): east and west (PDFs).

References:

  • Simpson, George [1792–1860], and Merk, Frederick [1887–1977], editor. Fur trade and empire. George Simpson’s journal entitled Remarks connected with fur trade in consequence of a voyage from York Factory to Fort George and back to York Factory 1824-25. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931. University of British Columbia Library
  • McMillan, James [1783–1858]. Winnipeg: Hudson’s Bay Company archives. Portion of letter James McMillan to William Connelly HBCA B.188/b/4 fo. 9-10 (1825).
  • Arrowsmith, John [1790–1873]. Provinces of British Columbia and Vancouver Island; with portions of the United States and Hudson’s Bay Territories. 1859. UVic
  • Milton, William Wentworth Fitzwilliam [1839–1877], and Cheadle, Walter Butler [1835–1910]. The North-West Passage by Land. Being the narrative of an expedition from the Atlantic to the Pacific, undertaken with the view of exploring a route across the continent to British Columbia through British territory, by one of the northern passes in the Rocky Mountains. London: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1865. Internet Archive
  • Trutch, Joseph William [1826–1904]. Map of British Columbia to the 56th Parallel North Latitude. Victoria, B.C.: Lands and Works Office, 1871. University of Victoria
  • McEvoy, James E., P.L.S. [1862–1935]. “Map Showing Yellowhead Pass Route From Edmonton To Tête-Jaune Cache.” (1900). Natural Resources Canada
  • Schäffer Warren, Mary T. S. [1861–1939]. Old Indian trails. Incidents of camp and trail life, covering two years’ exploration through the Rocky Mountains of Canada. [1907 and 1908]. New York: Putnam, 1911, p. 339. Internet Archive
  • MacGregor, James Grierson [1905–1989]. Pack Saddles to Tête Jaune Cache. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1962 (reprint 1973)
  • Smyth, David. “Some fur trade place names of the Yellowhead Pass: west of the summit to Tête Jaune Cache.” Canoma (journal of the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names), Vol. 11, No. 2 (1985)
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Moose City

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British Columbia. Former name
Construction camp at junction of Moose and Fraser Rivers
Earliest known reference to this name is 1912 (Wheeler)
Not currently an official name.
Mile 17 from the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
Moose City, at Mile 17. Photo: Byron Harmon, 1912

Moose City, at Mile 17. Photo: Byron Harmon, 1912
Canadian Alpine Journal 1912


Oxen pulling cart over bridge at Mile 17 BC, 1912

Oxen pulling cart over bridge at Mile 17 BC, 1912
Exploration Place — Fraser Fort George Regional Museum

In 1912, during his expedition to Mount Robson, Arthur Oliver Wheeler stopped at a railway construction camp on the Moose River. He found “a collection of saloons and bunk-houses of the log-wall-canvas-roof type, for the edification and comfort, or discomfort, of travellers. It glorified in the appellation of ‘Moose City,’ or, in railway parlance, ‘Mile 17.’ There was a good time in town that night. A new brand of ‘soft drink’ had arrived and, about midnight, its arrival was celebrated by a violent beating of triangles and tin cans. There was another shooting that night, but little damage was done. The town was chiefly remarkable for its brand of slick thieves. Konrad Kain [sic] had his clothes stolen, almost off his back, a considerable quantity of grub was taken and the cook’s stove abstracted while he sat upon it. However, in this section one learns to accept trifles of this kind with true philosophy, which in our case meant, buy another stove, at twice the price — on account of the freight.”

During the railway construction, Moose City was for a time the terminus of the tote road and the center of a brief mining flurry. Although a pack trail, sometimes on the hillside, sometimes in the lake, continued along the north side of Moose Lake, the railway contractors Foley, Welch and Stewart decided to move their freight on scows instead of building eight miles of tote road. Showings of gold, silver and copper on the multicolored mountain nearby attracted prospectors, and 17 miles of pack trail was started up Moose River valley.

Moose City was the site of a Japanese internment camp during World War Two. Harold Britton was killed by a train on the Moose River bridge while on guard duty in the early 1940s.

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. Alpine Club of Canada
  • MacGregor, James Grierson. Overland by the Yellowhead. Saskatoon: Western Producer, 1974. Internet Archive
  • Wheeler, Marilyn. The Robson Valley Story. McBride, B.C.: Robson Valley Story Group, 1979
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