William McGillivray

Gabriel Franchère [1786–1863], who travelled through the Athabasca Pass with the North West Company’s brigade in 1814, wrote, “Mr J. Henry, who first discovered the pass, gave this extraordinary rock the name of M’Gillivray’s Rock, in honor of one of the partners of the N. W. Company.”

William McGillivray [1764?-1825] , elder brother of Simon McGillivray and uncle of Duncan McGillivray, was one of the leading members of the North West Company. He was a member of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, 1808-09, for Montreal West, and of the Legislative Council of Lower Canada, 1811-25. He died in 1825 in London, England.

McGillivray was born in Scotland and brought to Montreal in 1784 by his uncle Simon McTavish of McTavish, Frobisher and Company. McGillivray was made a partner in the North West Company in 1790, and on McTavish’s death in 1804 McGillivray became the company’s chief director. Fort William, the company’s headquarters on Lake Superior, was named in his honor in 1807. McGillivray commanded a company of voyageurs in the War of 1812, assisting Issac Brock at the capture of Detroit. In recognition of these services he was appointed to the legislative council of Lower Canada in 1814. Between 1814 and 1816 he directed the North West Company’s opposition to the Red River Settlement and was captured when Lord Selkirk seized Fort William in 1816 as a reprisal for the destruction of the settlement. McGillivray emerged unscathed from the protracted legal proceedings that followed. He was associated with his brother Simon and with Edward Ellice in 1821 during the negotiations that ended in union between the Hudson’s Bay and North West companies and was made a member of the joint board formed to manage the fur trade. He died in London, England.

McGillivray’s Rock is close to the lake known as the Committee Punch Bowl at the summit of Athabasca Pass.

Gabriel Franchère was probably mistaken in crediting “J. Henry” with naming and discovering the Athabasca Pass. David Thompson was the first European recorded to have crossed the Athabasca Pass, early in 1811.

From 1826 to 1853, the Hudson’s Bay Company intermittently used the Yellowhead Pass to transport leather and grease from the Saskatchewan District to New Caledonia, in the interior of present-day British Columbia. In terms of provisions, New Caledonia was the poorest district in the entire fur trade. As an early trader put it, “New Caledonia being nearly altogether destitute of large animals both the Natives and Traders live entirely upon Fish.” Leather, principally dressed moose skins, and to a lesser extent buffalo skins, was used in its various forms in New Caledonia as the principal article of trade with the Natives, and by the fur traders themselves for shoes, clothes, pack-cords, snowshoes, tents, window parchment and a variety of other purposes.

The pass was usually referred to as the route or portage via Tête Jaune Cache. On a few occasions in the 1820s, the officer in charge of New Caledonia referred to the route as “the Leather track,” but this term encompassed the entire distance between Fort George and Jasper house. There is no record of any trader of the period ever calling the pass the Leather Pass.

The name “Leather Pass” appears to have been first used on an 1859 Arrowsmith map of British Columbia, the source of the name likely being the Royal Engineers, who were then conducting surveys in other parts of the colony. This name was frequently used in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s.

This name appears on B.C. Surveyor General Joseph Trutch’s 1871 map of British Columbia.

In 1824, Hudson’s Bay Company governor George Simpson, heading for the Athabasca Pass, noted, “the track for Cranberry Lake takes a Northerly direction by Cow Dung River.” The Cow Dung River was the Miette and Simpson’s Cranberry Lake may have been preset-day Yellowhead Lake.

John Arrowsmith’s 1859 map shows “Cow dung L.” as the western lobe of Yellowhead Lake (the eastern lobe is labeled “Moose L.”).

In 1862, when the Overlander gold seekers crossed Yellowhead Pass (which they called Leather Pass) they camped on Cow Dung Lake. A year later, the lake was known to Milton and Cheadle as Buffalo Dung Lake.

The name “Cowdung L.” appears on B.C. Surveyor General Joseph Trutch’s 1871 map of British Columbia, between Moose Lake and the Yellowhead or Leather Pass.