Mountains of Canada - Names: Canadian Geographic Magazine

NEWSLETTER

magazine / so01

September/October 2001 issue

FEATURE
Mountains

A mountain by any other name…

Official Canadian place names are approved by the Geographical Names Board of Canada, but many of our mountain monikers were suggested by the mountaineers who first climbed them or the geological surveyors inspired by their summits. Here are some of the interesting themes found among our country’s peaks.

Biblical references
New Brunswick

Mount Moriah is named for the biblical mountain where Abraham made preparations to sacrifice his son.

Alberta

Devil’s Thumb is a mountain near Lake Louise.

British Columbia

Mount Cain and Mount Abel on Vancouver Island are named for the unfortunate Biblical brothers, and are ironically adjacent to Eden Mountain.

The province also has a number of references to the Devil, including Devil’s Claw Mountain and Devils Club Mountain. An area of the Coast Mountains known as the ’White Inferno’ contains mountains named for the mythical chief lords of Satan - Beelzebub, Azazel, Belial, Dagon, Moloch, and Rimmon; Mount Satan is also in this group. B.C. is also home to Lucifer Peak.

Yukon

High above the timberline is Ark Mountain, named by local natives after they discovered the remains of an old log cabin of prospectors. With only missionary education and no obvious reason for the logs to be carried so far and high, they assumed it to be the remnants of Noah’s Ark. The Yukon is also home to Mount Jesus.

Shakespearean mountain names
British Columbia

On Vancouver Island, 70 km northwest of Campbell River, two adjacent mountains were named Mount Romeo and Mount Juliet for the pair of star-crossed lovers. They are separated by Montague Creek (from Romeo’s surname) which has Capulet Creek as a tributary (Juliet’s surname).

Garibaldi National Park is home to Angelo Peak, named for the naval officer in Othello. The park also includes Mount Iago (Othello), Mount Benvolio (Romeo and Juliet), and Mount Macbeth (Macbeth), which were all named in honour of Shakespeare’s 400th birthday.

Greek Mythology
British Columbia

In the Coast Mountains north of Vancouver, the peaks of Mount Eurydice and Mount Orpheus are separated by the Styx Glacier. This is in reference to the Greek myth in which the lovers Orpheus and Eurydice are eternally separated by the River Styx.

Another legendary pair of Greek lovers is immortalized in Mount Ulysses and Mount Penelope in the northern Rockies of northeastern B.C.

Christmas in Canada
New Brunswick

In 1964, Arthur Wightmann, then New Brunswick’s member on the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, dubbed a 210-metre hill North Pole Mountain in honour of Santa Claus’ mythical home. He named an adjoining peak Mount St. Nicholas, and eight nearby peaks Mount Dasher, Mount Dancer, Mount Prancer, Mount Vixen, Mount Comet, Mount Cupid, Mount Donder [sic] and Mount Blitzen after Santa’s faithful reindeer. It was later suggested that Rudolph be added, but the idea was rejected, deemed to be too commercial.

British Columbia/Alberta

On the provincial boundary, about 25 km north of Kicking Horse Pass, is St. Nicholas Peak, named by a topographical surveyor in 1908 for one side of the mountain’s resemblance to Santa Claus’ profile.

Foreign Heads of State/Royals
Alberta

In the 1940s, Prime Minister Mackenzie King instructed the Geographic Board of Canada to rename Castle Mountain as Mount Eisenhower. This rankled Albertans, and in the late 70s, after much debate, the name Castle Mountain was reinstated and the American general was given the honour of Eisenhower Peak on part of the mountain.

At the southern end of Banff National Park are Mount Queen Elizabeth and Mount King Albert. They are named in honour of the Belgian King Albert, who was a First World War ally, and his wife, Queen Elisabeth (although the mountain’s name is spelled differently). He reigned from 1904 until1934, when he died after a rock climbing fall.

British Columbia

The northern Rockies include Mount Roosevelt and Churchill Peak.

The former Mount Stalin in B.C. was named to honour Josef Stalin as a Second World War ally, but in the 1980s Ukrainian Canadians voiced their objection to honouring a man whom they viewed as a war criminal. In 1987, the B.C. government changed it to Mount Peck, after Don Peck, a widely respected trapper, guide and outfitter from the area.

Mount Queen Bess, 245 km northwest of Vancouver, is named for Queen Elizabeth I.

Yukon

Mount Kennedy was named in memory of U.S. President John F. Kennedy after his death. In 1965, his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy went on record as the first person to climb its peak. JFK was the last U.S. President to have a Canadian geographical feature named after him, and with restrictions on commemorating non-Canadians, he will likely remain the last.

The Yukon also has Jubilee Mountain, named in 1887 for Queen Victoria’s 50-year jubilee, and Mount King George and Mount Queen Mary, named in 1935 for George V’s and his consort’s silver jubilee, or 25 years of rule.

Canadian Prime Ministers
British Columbia

Many of our early prime ministers are honoured in mountains rising above Rogers Pass in north-central B.C.: Mount Mackenzie, Mount Tupper, Mount Macdonald and Mount Laurier.

In the Coast Mountains, Mount Sir Robert is named after Sir Robert Borden, our eighth prime minister.

The Premier Range (established in 1927) includes Mount Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mount Sir John Abbott, Mount Sir John Thompson and Mount Sir Mackenzie Bowell. All of these replaced pre-existing names. Also, Mount Mackenzie King and Mount Arthur Meighan replaced previously existing mountain names in 1962. The mountain climbing community was not pleased with these renamings because the original names either reflected past experiences on the mountains or remembered respected alpinists.

B.C. also has Mount Richard Bennett, Mount Louis St-Laurent and Mount Lester Pearson.

Yukon

Receiving many honours, Sir Wilfrid Laurier is also remembered in the Yukon with Mount Laurier.

In October 2000, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien proposed renaming the Yukon’s Mount Logan (Canada’s highest peak) for the recently deceased Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister from 1968-1979 and 1980-84). After a public and media uproar, Heritage Minister Sheila Copps announced another, unnamed feature would be named in honour of the former PM.

Canadian Provinces

In the Yukon, the Centennial Range has mountains named for each of the provinces and territories (except Nunavut, which did not exist in the Centennial year, 1967).

Sources
Naming Canada by Alan Rayburn (University of Toronto Press, 2001)
Yukon Places & Names by R.C. Coutts (Gray’s Publishing Ltd., 1980)
Place Names of Atlantic Canada by William B. Hamilton (University of Toronto Press, 1996)

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