Jean Léon Côté, M.L.A., Edmonton. Ca. 1915
Wikipedia

J. L. Côté and Reginald Cautley, Dawson, Yukon, ca. 1902
Provincial Archives of Alberta

Named for the prominent French-Canadian politician Jean Léon Côté (1867-1924), born in Les Éboulements, Canada East. Côté was a surveyor and civil engineer by trade, and first visited the Edmonton area in 1886 as part of a survey crew. He returned to the East and trained as a Dominion Land Surveyor for the Department of the Interior, where he worked from 1893 to 1900. In 1899, Côté was sent by the Department to the Klondike gold rush, arriving in Dawson City that summer. Sometime after his arrival in Dawson City, Côté joined the Cautley brothers* in a surveying partnership that lasted several years.

In the spring of 1909, Côté was induced to enter politics as a Liberal as he was well known in the Athabasca, Lesser Slave Lake, Peace River and Fort McMurray areas through his numerous surveying activities. He was elected in the new Grouard riding in 1913 and re-elected by acclamation in 1918 and again in 1921. Côté was provincial secretary and Minister of Mines, Railways and Telephones. As Minister, Côté promoted the issue and approval by the Government of Alberta of an Order in Council establishing what would become known as the Alberta Research Council.
In the Summer of 1923, Côté received word from Prime Minister MacKenzie King of his appointment to the Senate.
He died suddenly on September 24, 1924, at the age of 57 from peritonitis.

* Richard William Cautley (1873–1953) was later Alberta’s commissioner on the Interprovincial Boundary Commission. Reginald Hutton Cautley (1879–1945) was at the time articling under his brother to become a DLS, and obtained his commission in 1905.

James Alexander Walker

British Columbia Land Surveyor James Alexander Walker (1887–1959) started surveys in the upper Fraser River area in 1912. In 1913 and 1914, he surveyed within the three-mile land reserve on the Fraser near McBride, subdividing the country into 40-acre tracts. That year 80,000 acres of land was opened by the provincial government. Walker reported that “a great rush resulted, about 175 pre-emptions having been filed upon. All summer clearing land and building cabins have been the chief industries in the valley. A splendid type of settlers, by far the majority of whom are English-speaking, has come in. There are no Indians in the valley from Tête Jaune Cache to the Fort George Indian reserves.”

Walker was born on August 6, 1887 to Mary Milne and Peter Walker in Scotland. Educated as a civil engineer, J. Alexander owned and operated the firm J. Alexander Walker and Associates and later with W.E. Graham at Walker and Graham. He was known as the “Engineer-Secretary” and served as the executive director of the Vancouver Town Planning Commission from its beginning on February 1, 1926 ,until his retirement on October 30, 1952.

Walker Creek (not “East Fork of Torpy River”) identified in the 1930 and 1953 BC Gazetteers.

The camera station “Morkill” was established on this summit in 1923 (BC-Alberta boundary sheet #37, and Report Part III, p.62); so-named by the Interprovincial Boundary Commission in association with Morkill River and Morkill Pass.

Interprovincial Boundary Commission

The name was adopted in 1925 to recognize surveyor Dalby Brooks Morkill [1880–1955].

Morkill was born in Sherbrooke, Québec, and came to British Columbia in 1898. He received his commission as a British Columbia Land Surveyor in 1910. Morkill was employed in 1912 by the British Columbia government making surveys on the Fraser River between Horsey Creek and Holmes River. In 1913, with Alan S. Thompson, Morkill surveyed between the Goat River and Catfish Creek.

Morkill worked on the British Columbia-Alberta boundary surveys north of Yellowhead Pass in the early 1920s. Subsequently Morkill surveyed in several other areas of the Province. During his last years he spent summers at his residence at Barkerville and winters in Vancouver.

The Morkill River is known locally as the Smoky River, a name that dates back to at least 1909. (There is also a Smoky River in Alberta, headwaters at Robson Pass.)

The First Canadian Pacific R.R. and Geological Survey parties for British Columbia, July 22 1871 Left to right : L. N. Rheaumis, Roderick McLennan, A. S. Hall, West West Ireland, Alfred Selwyn, Alex Maclennan, Walter Moberly, C. E. Gilette, James Richardson, — — McDonald, George Watt.
Toronto Public Library

Detail: Roderick McLennan
Toronto Public Library

“McLennan River” appears on James McEvoy’s 1900 map showing the Yellowhead Pass route from Edmonton to Tête-Jaune Cache.

In 1871-72, Canadian Pacific Railway surveyors Roderick McLennan and Charles Horetzky made a reconnaisance from the Big Bend of the Columbia River up to the North Thompson River. McLennan left Kamloops on August 19, 1871, and in October decided to winter his party in the vicinity of Tête Jaune Cache. He built a camp four or five miles upstream from the Canoe River on what consequently came to be named Camp Creek. In 1872 he undertook an expedition to Moose Lake.

George Monro Grant mentions McLennan in his book Ocean to Ocean:

[South of Albreda] the trail was as bad as could well be, although a great amount of honest work had been expended on it. Before McCord [surveyor] had come through, it must havbe been simple impassable except for an Indian on foot, — worse than when Milton and Cheadle forced through with their one pack-horse at the rate of three miles a day; for the large Canadian party [Overlanders] had immediately preceded them, whereas no one attempted to follow in their steps till McLellan [McLennan ?] , in 1871, and in the intervening nine years much of the trail had been buried out of sight, or hopelessly blocked up by masses of timber, torrents, landslides, or debris.

“The stream here called McLennan River, its real source, is also known as Mica Creek,” reported Munday in 1925.