A number of Indian dictionary words have been applied to mountain peaks by modern travellers. The Indian practice, however, is more to describe a physical feature by a sentence than by a word. Such artificial names include the following: Chetang (hawk)…

— Douglas 1919

“Chetang Ridge” is listed at the Indigenous Geographical Names dataset as a word of undetermined language.

Wapiti is named after the Cree word for elk (waapiti).

On the south-west side, Wapiti Pass is at the headwaters of Framstead Creek, which flows via Herrick Creek and the McGregor River to the Fraser River. On the north-east side, Wapiti Pass is at the headwaters of the Wapiti River which flows into the Smoky River and thence to the Peace River.

Mary Lenore Jobe Akeley [1878–1966] visited the area with Donald “Curly” Phillips [1884–1938] and party in 1915:

From Mt. Alexander Mackenzie, we travelled north to Jarvis Pass, and crossed pass to the Wapiti. This was our “farthest north.” Returning via Jarvis Pass, the Porcupine, Providence Valley and Sheep-Creek, we crossed to the Muddy, which we followed to its mouth, rafted the Big Smoky below the mouth of the Sulphur and followed the old Indian trail to Grand Cache. From this point we travelled up the Sulphur, crossed Hardscrabble Pass to Rockslide Creek, and again struck the Big Smoky near the mouth of Short River (“Glacier Creek,” Collie and Mumm), and thence returned to Robson Station the 1st of September.

In October 1917 she returned with Phillips:

The early winter of 1917 my desire to make a winter trip through the northern Canadian Rockies was realized. I was I fortunate In being able to combine my trip with Mr. Donald Phillips’ business of taking in supplies for a scientific expedition to the Wapiti River, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution….

Once across the Wapiti Pass we found ourselves in a veritable den of wolves. Their tracks were everywhere. They came near our camps and howled so dismally in the night-time, that we did not hesitate to burn fuel lavishly; in broad daylight the morning we were breaking our ten days’ camp on the Wapiti, they became so inquisitive and so vocal that they almost stampeded our outfit; and once, as we were moving our pack train at twilight along the Wapiti River, two black monsters crossed in front of us and stood in the timber a few yards away yelping and whining like hungry curs. They are vicious beasts and are afraid of nothing smaller than grizzly.
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“Wapiti” is listed at the Indigenous Geographical Names dataset as a word of Cree language.

Mary Lenore Jobe Akeley [1878–1966] submitted the name “Kitchi” to the Geographic Board of Canada in April 1915, to apply to the very high mountain just south of this location. In her article in the 1914 Canadian Alpine Journal, she wrote that “Kitchi in the Cree Indian language means ‘Great,’ ‘Mighty.’”

The Geographic Board adopted the name “Kitchi Mountain” for the very high mountain in September 1915, and Mary Jobe’s article: ”Mt. Kitchi, A New Peak in the Canadian Rockies” was published in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol XLVII, No. 7, 1915, pp 481-497. The following September, the Board was persuaded by climber Samuel Prescott Fay [1884–1971], associated with New York’s Museum of Natural History, to reverse their decision and adopt his recommendation — “Mount Sir Mackenzie,” which was changed in 1917 to “Mount Sir Alexander.”

To perpetuate the name “Kitchi, ” Alan John Campbell [1882–1967], British Columbia Land Surveyor, placed it on this mountain to the north, as shown on his 1929 survey plan 10T264, McGregor River area.

Kitchi Mountain is listed at Indigenous Geographical Names dataset.

Language: ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ (Nēhiyawēwin)
Dialect: Plains Cree
Meaning: Mighty, or great
Year Adopted: ‪1965‬

Name appears on BC-Alberta Boundary Atlas sheet #39, 1924. The river was labeled “Porcupine River” on 1912 map of BC Northern Interior (publisher not cited), and on BC Lands 1913 Preliminary Forest Map, and on BC Lands 1917 map of the Forest Stand Types in British Columbia.

Mountaineer Samuel Prescott Fay [1884–1971], who spent the summers of 1912-14 tracking big game in this area, suggested the name “Porcupine” be changed [or revert (?)] to “Kakwa”, the Cree word for porcupine.

“Kakwa” is listed at the Indigenous Geographical Names dataset as a word of Cree language.

A Native camp, Tête Jaune Cache area, 1910s.
Valemount & Area Museum

The river appears as “Big Shuswap R.” on Collie’s 1912 map.

The Raush River was originally known as the Shuswap River, after the natives living in the area at first white contact. There was a Shuswap settlement at Tête Jaune Cache. The Robson Valley marked their northern limits.

These Shuswap Indians of the Texqakallt band of the upper North Thompson River were the earliest known inhabitants of the upper reaches of the Fraser River. They were almost completely nomadic. They dressed only in marmot skins and slept on the open snow with their feet toward a central fire. At times, they constructed bark teepees. Lodges and fish drying racks were constructed in prime salmon fishing territory at the confluence of the McLennan and Fraser Rivers in the vicinity of what is now Tete Jaune Cache. As well as salmon from the Fraser, trout were reportedly taken from Yellowhead Lake. They hunted bighorn sheep, mountain goats, moose, marmots, and other small mammals and birds. They also relied on edible plants in the area, especially berries.

In his “Notes on the Cariboo Range” of 1925, Munday wrote, “The local name of the Big Shuswap conflicts with the Shuswap River further south and appears on recent government maps as Raushwap or Rausch River (from Riviere au Shuswap). Kiwa Creek is known locally as Little Shuswap.”

Cariboo Mountains

The name “Cariboo” is derived from an Algonquian word xalibu, meaning “pawer” or “scratcher,” referring to the North American reindeer. The name was first applied to the goldfield area around Quesnel and Barkerville, where caribou were once abundant. The name goes back to at least 1861, near the beginning of the gold rush, when governor James Douglas [1803–1877] of the colony of British Columbia used the name “Cariboo” to describe the area in dispatches to Britain.

Raymond T. Zillmer made a number of explorations in the Cariboo Mountains in the 1930s and 40s and wrote articles about area in the Canadian Alpine Journal and the American Alpine Journal.

The Cariboo Range is important in the development of Canada. When the Canadian Pacific Railway considered the matter of its route across the continental divide, it tentatively selected Yellowhead Pass, for it offered the easiest crossing. But that decision was frustrated by the Cariboo Mountains. A practical railroad route led from Yellowhead Pass to the Fraser River and down the Fraser until the Cariboo Range was reached, about 50 miles west of the pass. Here, from an elevation of 2400 ft., at Tête Jaune Cache, the Cariboo Range rises in a very short distance to as high as 11,750 ft., the height of Mt. Sir Wilfred Laurier, the highest peak of the entire Interior Ranges of British Columbia. If a route could not be found across the range, a long detour to the northwest or to the south was necessary—the routes now followed by the Canadian National Railway. So from 1871 to 1874 four well- equipped expeditions sought a route across the Cariboo Mountains. But they found that only high glacial passes were available. So the route across Yellowhead Pass was abandoned in favor of the more southerly route now used by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

— Zillmer 1939

The name “Cariboo Mountains” was officially adopted in 1918, not “Cariboo Range” as labelled on Bowman’s 1887 map of the Cariboo Mining District.