Arnold Louis Mumm [1859–1927] wrote of his 1909 expedition to Mount Robson, “We now learned from John Yates, who came with us, that he, Mr. Kinney and the brothers Coleman had effected a direct passage to the base of the wall through a tumbled mass of snow and glacier which intervenes between it and the face of the main glacier and is held up by a snow-capped buttress to which he gave the name of ‘The Helmet.’” John Yates [1880–], a guide from Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, had accompanied Arthur Philomen Coleman [1852–1939] and Kinney on their 1908 expedition to Mount Robson.

During the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition, director Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] said he “looked at the north-east face of the Mount Robson massif. On the north shoulder rests a mighty ice-field, crevassed and broken in every direction. From its centre a rugged ridge protrudes, of which the culminating apex has been named by Coleman ‘The Helmet,’ from the resemblance to the old Roman headpiece when seen from the valley below.”

Another source says the Helmet was named by J. H. Scattergood in 1900.