1906 - 2006 Alpine Club of Canada`s The

Transcription

The
Centennial
Alpine Club of Canada's
Vol. 21, No. 1
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Winter 2006
1906 - 2006
A B S O L U T E
A L P I N E
Swiss Quality For further informations please visit our Web site or contact Jim Sandford,
Garibaldi Highlands, Phone +(604)898-2053, [email protected] , www.mammut.ch
Dedicated, in the spirit of the founders,
to the four generations of members,
volunteers and staff who made the
Alpine Club of Canada what
it was and what it is today.
Alpine Club of Canada
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Centennial Gazette
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2006
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www.marmot.com Photo Klaus Fengler
S I G N A T U R E
S E R I E S
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The Alpine Club of Canada
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40009034
Return undeliverable Canadian Addresses to:
Box 8040, Canmore,
Alberta, Canada T1W 2T8
Phone: (403) 678-3200
Fax: (403) 678-3224
[email protected]
www.AlpineClubofCanada.ca
Cam Roe,
Peter Muir,
Gord Currie,
Roger Laurilla
Isabelle Daigneault,
Carl Hannigan,
Bob Sandford,
David Zemrau,
Mike Mortimer,
David Toole,
President
Secretary
Treasurer
VP Activities
VP Access & Environment
VP Facilities
VP Mountain Culture
VP Services
Director, External Relations
Director, Planning
& Development
Glen Boles, Honorary President
Bruce Keith, Executive Director
Submissions to the Gazette are welcome! The
deadline for the Spring issue of the Gazette
is April 10. If possible, please save your
submission in digital format and e-mail it to
[email protected] Otherwise, type
or handwrite it, making sure it is double spaced and
legible and mail it to the address above. Please be sure
to include complete contact information with your
submission.
Mike Mortimer,
Bob Sandford,
Lynn Martel,
Amy Krause,
Richard Berry,
Rod Plasman,
Suzan Chamney,
Centennial Chairman
Centennial Editor
Writer & Copy Editor
Writer
Photo Editor
Digital Technician
Layout & Production
Advertising rate sheet available upon request.
Please direct all advertising inquiries to Bruce
Keith, National Office (403) 678-3202 or by
e-mail to: [email protected]
What’s Inside...
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National Office News
Short Rope
Our Origins are in the Alpine
Building a National Alpine
Tradition
Extraordinary Leadership and
Vision
A Woman’s Place is in the
Mountains
Sharing the Rope
Camps in the Clouds
The Canadian Alpine Journal
Science in the High Alpine
The Centennial of the Canadian
Alpine Journal
Mount Robson
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Mount Logan
Refuges Among the High Peaks
Slopes and Summits
National Parks and Protected Places
The Yukon Alpine Centennial
Mount Alberta
Volunteering for Club and Country
The Mountain Guides’ Ball
Giving Meaning and Value to
History
Leadership Training and
Development
Reaching New Heights
A Century of Leadership and
Adventure
The Centennial Postscript
Le PostScript Centenaire
What’s Outside...
Front cover: Alpine Club of Canada members lined up on the Yoho Glacier in 1914;
photo by Byron Harmon, courtesy of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian
Rockies and Carole Harmon
Phyl Munday helps climbers identify alpine wildflowers in 1964; photo
by Len Chatwin
Mount Alberta’s summit ridge in August 2001; photo by Nancy Hansen
Historic climbing photos courtesy of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian
Rockies
Dedication page: Skiers enroute to the Bow Hut on the Wapta Icefield; photo by
Richard Berry
Thank you to the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation
and its Heritage Preservation Partnership Program for
its generous support of this ACC Centennial project.
Corporate Supporters
Associate Members
The Alpine Club of Canada thanks the following for their support, and encourages you
to consider them and the advertisers in this newsletter the next time you purchase goods
or services of the type they offer.
is proud to be associated with the
following organizations that share
our goals and objectives:
Corporate Sponsors
MOUNTAIN
EQUIPMENT
CO-OP
Corporate Members
Advantage Travelworld
(Canmore, AB)
Arc’teryx
Black Diamond Equipment
Dunham
Forty Below
Printed on recycled paper
G3 Genuine Guide Gear
GearUp Sport (Canmore, AB)
Helly Hansen
Integral Designs
Mammut
Ortovox Canada
Outdoor Research
Patagonia
Petzl
Yamnuska (Canmore, AB)
Alberta Sport, Recreation, Parks
and Wildlife Foundation
Association of Canadian Mountain
Guides (ACMG)
Canadian Avalanche Association
(CAA)
Federation of Mountain Clubs of
British Columbia (FMCBC)
Mountain Culture at the Banff
Centre
Whyte Museum of the Canadian
Rockies (Banff, AB)
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Since the inception of the
in 1906, the National
Office has been a central
organizing force in providing
membership benefits,
maintaining facilities and
coordinating the activities of
sections. The National Office’s
enthusiastic and highly
energetic staff plays a huge
role in the continued growth
and success of the Club.
National Office News
I
t’s on the telephone answering machine
message, it’s on the website and it’s on the tip
of everyone’s tongue at the National Office
– it’s the Centennial!
But even as we celebrate our 100th birthday
with members participating in commemorative
camps and gala dinners, the hard working National
Office staff members keep the day-to-day business
of the Club running smoothly, with Executive
Director Bruce Keith at the helm.
Recognized for 10 years’ dedicated service to
the Club last summer, Bruce embraced a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to sneak away from his
office in February to cheer for his daughter Sandra,
competing on the Canadian Biathlon Team at the
2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.
“For the parent of a high performance athlete, it
doesn’t get any better,” Bruce grinned.
Enjoying another rare and well earned escape,
in October 2005 Bruce
and ACC President
Cam Roe spent three
days in Tokyo at
the invitation of the
Japanese Alpine Club
( JAC) to participate in
that club’s Centennial.
The occasion offered
a joyful reunion for
Cam and Bruce and
members of the 2000
JAC team who visited
the Canadian Rockies
for the 75th anniversary
of the first ascent of
Crown Prince of Japan meets Cam Roe and Bruce Keith in 2005
Mount Alberta.
In Tokyo, Bruce and Cam attended the JAC
annual dinner, a gala affair with about 800 guests,
including the Crown Prince of Japan whose
bodyguards remained at the door while he mingled
with climbers. Guests enjoyed a Japanese cultural
exhibition and musical entertainment courtesy
of an Austrian Om Pah Pah Band. Bruce was
especially delighted to be seated next to a man in
his 90s who was the first JAC member to climb in
the Himalayas circa 1930s.
In November, our own Club hosted its annual
Mountain Guides’ Ball, held for the first time ever
at the Banff Park Lodge, where a good dinner, good
time and great Big Band sound were enjoyed by all.
Celebrating the contributions of some of
the ACC’s most devoted members, the Club
welcomed Eric Lomas, a member since 1963,
generous volunteer and talented hut builder, and
Mike Mortimer, who joined in 1977 and hasn’t
stopped volunteering since, as its newest Honorary
Members.
And in honour of his prolific climbing career,
including reaching some 525 summits with 37 first
ascents, reaching the summits of all but six of the
54 Canadian Rockies peaks higher than 11,000
feet (3353 metres), and all but one of the 17 peaks
above 3353 metres in the Columbia Mountains, the
Club welcomed Glen Boles as Honorary President.
A talented artist and photographer, Boles has
amassed a library of over 34,000 slides and 25,000
black and white negatives, many of which have
appeared in guidebooks and climbing books – and
some of which you’ll see in the pages of this very
special Centennial Gazette.
The Helmet, Berg Glacier and the North and Emperor faces of
Mountt Robson, looking from the flats near Berg Lake
PHOTO BY GLEN BOLES
UPCOMING MEETINGS
Executive Committee meeting:
● March 24, Winnipeg
Board of Directors meeting:
● March 25 – 26, Winnipeg
Annual General Meeting:
● July 15, Wheeler Hut, Glacier National Park,
details to follow in the Summer Gazette.
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Short Rope
A
Mike Mortimer addresses the
Japanese Alpine Club in 2000
A Centennial is no small
event in the history of any
organization. In this opening
article the Chair of the Alpine
Club of Canada’s Centennial
Committee, the tireless Mike
Mortimer, reflects on all the
efforts Club volunteers have
made to make 2006 one
of the greatest years in the
history of the Club.
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s the Chair of the Centennial Committee
I have known for years that I would have
to write the foreword to the Centennial
Gazette. Yet it was one of those articles that could
not be written until all the other reports were in.
So after five years of waiting, here I am at last
collecting my thoughts on what we have done to
bring together the necessary tools to do justice
to one of the Club’s most significant events in its
distinguished history. How did the planning for
this event all start?
In the spring of 2001 the Alpine Club
of Canada formally created the Centennial
Committee. Having just stepped down from
serving as the Club’s president, it seemed a logical
move for me to become the chairman of this newly
formed committee. This was to become a task that
would consume me over the course of the next five
years!
It was decided that the Centennial Committee
members would be the representatives of the
Executive Committee of the Board. This was
seen as the best way of keeping the senior board
members of the ACC completely up to date on all
the projects that were likely to be proposed over the
course of time.
The objectives were many. One of the
hardest things about planning the Centennial
was determining exactly what we should do to
commemorate this auspicious occasion. The easiest
thing would have been to simply catalogue the
achievements of the past, but surely the celebration
would have to be more than just patting ourselves
on the backs (for the work done largely by our
predecessors). Clearly the Centennial was an
opportunity to look towards the future – we knew
where we came from but what about where we are
going? Obviously we would not have the hubris
to plan the next century, but maybe we would be
in a position to examine the guidelines set by our
founding members and see if the cornerstones, that
had been laid in Winnipeg and which had served
us so well in the previous century, could do the
same in the next century. The pages that follow in
this Gazette attest to the fact that we have been true
to, and to a large extent have fulfilled, our original
mandate.
Obviously we were not the first national
climbing club to celebrate its centennial. The
venerable Alpine Club led the way in 1957, an
event which Eric Brooks, the ACC President at
the time, attended. I went to the American Alpine
Club’s Centennial Dinner in Denver in 2003 and
our current President, Cam Roe, attended the
Japanese Alpine Club’s Centennial in Tokyo last
year, so there was no shortage of ideas about what
Centennial Gazette
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2006
we could do based on the activities of other clubs.
Originally we didn’t know exactly what we
were going to do for the Centennial but we knew
it would more than likely cost money, so the first
point of order was to set aside the appropriate
resources. We established the Centennial Fund,
which became one of the Club’s most successful
endeavours. The board decided that the earnings
from our Endowment Fund would be allocated to
this fund for the period 2001 to 2007, as were the
proceeds generated from our annual dinner, the
Mountain Guides’ Ball. Under the direction of the
national Fundraising Committee, successful appeals
were made to the members so that over $550,000
was raised for the Centennial events. More than
half of this amount was to be spent on facilities, in
particular the rebuilding of the Fay Hut and the
construction of the Pat Boswell (Toronto Section)
Cabin at the Canmore Clubhouse, built to replace
the old Toronto Section Cabin. In addition we
successfully applied for grants from agencies such
as Parks Canada, the Canadian Pacific Railway and
the Alberta government.
Throughout this publication there is an excellent
list of both the national and regional events that
are planned for the Centennial. It was decided
that the national committee, while encouraging
regional events, through the establishment of a
Section Centennial Committee, would limit its
focus to national events that would complement
the activities of the five major portfolios of the
Club. These included Mountain Culture, Facilities,
Activities, Services and Access & Environment.
Each Vice President was asked to identify
projects that would best represent their portfolios
that would be included in the official celebrations.
These projects would become the nucleus for the
Centennial:
Mountain Culture
The big project would be the digitization of
all 100 years of the Canadian Alpine Journal. This
endeavour would span the life of two technologies,
the original idea had been to use compact
disks (CDs), but by the time the project neared
completion we were looking at digital video disks
(DVDs) as the medium.
Other major projects included this 64-page
Centennial Gazette which would reflect on the
history and essence of the Club; The Artist and the
Mountaineer, an art exhibit at the Whyte Museum
in Banff, a highly successful initiative that would be
reported in Canadian Geographic magazine; and the
Centennial edition of the Canadian Alpine Journal,
planned for 2007.
Facilities
In 2003 a forest fire destroyed the Fay Hut, the
first hut built by the Club. Within two years the
hut was replaced through the Herculean efforts of
our Fundraising and Facilities Committees. This
was followed by the building of a new cabin at the
Canmore Clubhouse, scheduled to open in 2006, in
conjunction with the Clubhouse Heritage Room,
which will tell the story of the Club's history.
Activities
Three climbers near the east
face of Mount Robson, 1918
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHYTE
MUSEUM OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES
Of course it would have been hard to celebrate
100 years of a climbing club without actually doing
some climbing. Our grand plan was the offering
of over 25 national leadership and adventure trips,
including a camp based out of the Stanley Mitchell
Hut in the Yoho Valley, where it all
started in 1906 with our first camp.
Services and Access & Environment
Our major external initiative was to
invite the International Mountaineering
and Climbing Federation (UIAA) to
hold not only its General Assembly in
Banff, but also allow its commissions to
hold seminars that would prove to be of
major interest to our members.
We viewed the Centennial as an
opportunity to celebrate the close ties
that had been developed with our land
managers, particularly Parks Canada
and British Columbia Provincial Parks.
We received permission to build a stone
The Vaux family and friends on the Victoria
Glacier, July 7, 1900
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE VAUX FAMILY COLLECTION AND THE
WHYTE MUSEUM OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES
monument at Yoho Pass to commemorate where
the Club held its first camp, first climbing school
and what was to become the longest continuous
employment of professional mountain guides!
None of these events could have taken place
without the help of a massive army of volunteers.
By the start of the 21st century the notion was
raised that the Club lacked the requisite number of
volunteers to continue to undertake the many tasks
that it previously attended to. I disagree with this
notion and believe that a quick tally bears me out
on this. We have 10 major committees, 18 regional
sections of varying size and one activity based
section. Each section is a mini-club in itself with
its own sub-committees that organize activities
ranging from climbing trips to publishing section
newsletters. If we allow that each of these activities
requires the services of 40 volunteers then we find
that this translates into the volunteer effort of about
1160 people. This means about 12 per cent of all
the members of the Club volunteer their services
in one way or another to the Club. This might help
explain why over the last 100 years we have grown
from strength to strength. As long as the Club can
continue to inspire volunteers to serve, I believe
that we have a strong future.
We have come a long way from our humble
origins in Winnipeg. Over the course of the
century we did many things. We ran 100 General
Mountaineering Camps, made the first ascent of
Canada’s highest mountain, published 87 volumes
of the Canadian Alpine Journal, built or acquired
over 30 huts, co-founded the Banff Mountain
Film Festival, helped establish the Association of
Canadian Mountain Guides and created 19 sections.
But more than this, we introduced thousands of
Canadians to the mountains and gave them a sense
of our mountain culture. I think that our founders
would have been very proud.
Although it is always dangerous to single out
a group of volunteers (because of the possibility
of omission), it is important to mention some of
those people who guided the national centennial
projects through to their successful conclusion. I
must thank the following people for being part of
the Centennial Committee: David Toole, Bruce
Keith, Cameron Roe, Carl Hannigan, Gord Currie,
David Zemrau, Peter Muir, Isabelle Daignault,
Roger Laurilla, Paul Geddes, Rod Plasman and
Bob Sandford.
With respect to this publication I must stress
the work that has been done by Lynn Martel,
Richard Berry, Suzan Chamney, Rod Plasman and
particularly Bob Sandford.
—Mike Mortimer
Chair, Centennial Committee
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A century ago Canadians
were simply too occupied
with the creation of
their country to become
formally interested in
mountaineering. The Alpine
Club of Canada might not
have come into existence
were it not for a passionate
and persistent mountaineer
named Arthur Wheeler and a
patriotic Winnipeg journalist
named Elizabeth Parker.
Together they convinced a
young country of the value of
its own mountains.
Our Origins are in the Alpine
T
he idea of creating the world’s first alpine
club first found its way into print in a
letter written on February 1, 1857, by
British climber William Matthews to a fellow
mountaineer, Fenton John Anthony Hort. The letter
invited Reverend Hort to consider establishing an
alpine organization whose members “might dine
together, perhaps once a year in London, to give
one another what information they might possess”
concerning mountaineering ascents in Switzerland
and elsewhere. Each member of this organization,
Matthews proposed, “should be required to
furnish, to the President, a short account of all
the undescribed excursions he had made, with a
view to the publication of an annual or bi-annual
volume.” A dinner party was held in November of
1857 where a list was drawn up of those of wealth,
class and experience who might become founding
members of the Club. The Alpine Club came into
formal existence at a meeting held in a London
hotel on December 22, 1857. Setting a precedent
that would be followed by almost every other club
created in the world, the Alpine Club’s first general
meeting was held in a tavern on St. James Street
in January, 1858. Alpine clubs and pubs have had a
close association ever since.
Not to be outdone by the British, enthusiasm
for things alpine soon burgeoned in the United
States. Though the Williamstown Club formed in
1863, the White Mountain Club formed in 1873
and the Rocky Mountain Alpine Club formed in
1876, none of these survived to see the dawn of
the 20th century. Other clubs, however, did. The
foremost of these was the Appalachian Mountain
Club which was formed in 1876. With founder and
President Charles Fay at the helm, the Appalachian
Mountain Club made a major contribution to
mountaineering in North America. The Oregon
Alpine Club, formed in 1887, attempted to do for
western climbers what the AMC had done in the
east. The Mazamas Club was formed in 1894, by
which time interested in climbing in America had
grown spectacularly.
The success of these organizations, and in
particular the profile of the Appalachian Club,
We are, and always shall be, profoundly grateful, as we ought to be, to the
American club for its strenuous and splendid gratuitous service to Canada and
her mountains. And we shall give it praise and welcome it to further mountain
tours. But we owe it to our own young nationhood in simple self-respect, to begin
an organized system of mountaineering on an independent basis. Surely, between
Halifax and Victoria, there can be found at least a dozen persons who are made of
the stuff, and care enough about our mountain heritage to redeem Canadian apathy
and indifference. It is simply amazing that for so long we have cared so little.
—Elizabeth Parker, Winnipeg Free Press, 1905
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argued for the creation of a national climbing
body in the United States. When the American
Alpine Club was formed in 1902, Charles Fay
became its first President. Almost immediately,
Fay proposed that a Canadian chapter of the same
club would suit the needs of America’s northern
neighbours. Canadians went ballistic. The proposal
hit a nationalistic nerve which found its most lively
expression in the Winnipeg Free Press where the
idea of Canada becoming subsidiary to the United
States in something as important as exploring the
country’s own mountains received a fierce “penlashing” from a staff writer named Elizabeth Parker.
In an article signed “M.T.”, Parker claimed
it was downright un-Canadian to subject local
mountaineers to the dictates of foreign alpine
institutions. Parker pilloried the idea’s proponent,
Canadian surveyor-mountaineer Arthur
Oliver Wheeler, for his “lack of patriotism and
imperialistic zeal” in even considering the American
proposal. “It knocks me speechless and fills me with
shame for young Canada,” Parker railed in response
to Canadian apathy. The wily Wheeler knew a
good thing when he saw it. When the Alpine Club
of Canada was formed in Winnipeg in March
of 1906, he made sure Elizabeth Parker was its
founding Secretary.
The constitution of the Club that emerged from
the Winnipeg meeting still powers the organization
today. If anything, the values and objectives of the
ACC are more important now than they were when
the Club was formed. The Alpine Club of Canada
is not just a mountaineering organization. As if
anticipating the ecological issues that would occupy
the politics and conscience of Canadians a century
later, the Club set high aesthetic and environmental
standards for its activities that went far beyond a
mere interest in summit bagging.
The objectives of the Alpine Club of Canada
included the promotion of scientific study and
the exploration of Canadian alpine and glacial
regions; the cultivation of art in relation to
mountain scenery; the education of Canadians to
an appreciation of their mountain heritage; the
encouragement of mountain craft and the opening
of new mountain regions; the preservation of the
natural beauties of mountain places and the flora
and fauna and their habitat; and the interchange of
ideas with other alpine organizations.
The founding meeting of the Alpine Club of
Canada also addressed the somewhat thorny issue
of membership. The founders of the Club decided
there should be a number of levels of involvement.
Honorary Members were deigned to be those who
had already pre-eminently distinguished themselves
in mountaineering, exploration or research of the
ALPINE CLUB
CANADA COLLECTION AT THE WHYTE
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE
OF
The founding members of the ACC at the inaugural meeting in Winnipeg, March 27 – 28,
1906. Back row: (left to right) Rev. T. Fraser, L.O. Armstrong, Tom Martin, W.H. Belford, Rev.
Alex Gordon. Middle Row (left to right) Miss Jean Parker, Stanley Wills, S.H. Mitchell, Lucius Q.
Coleman. Front row (left to right) J.W. Kelly, W.J. Taylor, Arthur Oliver Wheeler, Elizabeth Parker,
E.A. Haggen, Rev. J.C. Herdman, Very Rev. Dean Paget, Bill Brewster.
alpine. These included such luminaries as John
Norman Collie, who had discovered the Columbia
Icefield in 1898, Edouard DeVille of the Dominion
Land Survey and Edward Whymper, who had
led the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865.
Elizabeth Parker was also elected one of the Club’s
first honorary members.
Active members were those who had made
an ascent of a peak of not less than 10,000 feet
(3048 m) in altitude in any recognized mountain
range. Only active members were permitted to
vote. A special clause, however, allowed artists
and scientists to become active members without
climbing a peak provided they had contributed
significantly through their work to knowledge and
appreciation of the alpine.
Then the Club addressed the issue of women.
The Alpine Club in England, after which most
clubs were fashioned, did not allow women among
its membership. Its members preferred to have a
separate club for the ladies. Given that one of the
two founders of the Alpine Club of Canada was a
woman, and a powerhouse at that, the ACC would
have had a riot on its hands had it even hinted at
the exclusion of women from active participation in
the Club and its activities.
Elizabeth Parker’s visionary notion of the
ACC went far beyond its constitution and the
work the Club had set before itself at its founding
meeting in March of 1906. For her, just as for
Arthur Oliver Wheeler, the Alpine Club of
Canada was to be a social force that would help
shape Canadian character. The Club was not
only a vehicle for promoting the highest ideals of
alpinism, it was Canada’s first guardian agency for
the vast wilderness aesthetic that Canadians took
for granted in what they thought was a limitless
mountain west.
The ACC boasted among its founding
membership some of the brightest lights of
exploration, outfitting and mountaineering that
had ever shone in Canada. But for all its luminosity,
the ACC represented only a small and elite core of
climbers whose hope it was to inspire Canadians
to take a serious interest in their own peaks. The
Alpine Club of Canada had a huge task before it.
At the time it was created, Canadians were only
barely aware of their mountain heritage.
It wasn’t just the landscape that proved
an obstacle to Canadian acceptance of the
mountaineering spirit. As a result of a few highly
publicized accidents, mountaineering had a poor
public image in Canada. The general feeling among
Canadians was that mountains were dangerous and
the people who climbed them crazy. The Alpine
Club of Canada was faced with the dual challenge
of changing the image of Canadian mountains
while at the same time reforming the reputation of
those who would consider climbing them. It was a
huge task that would take decades to accomplish.
Through the efforts of the Alpine Club of
Canada, mountain place slowly began to penetrate
the Canadian psyche. Canadians began having
challenging, satisfying and memorable experiences
in their own mountains. Canadian mountains
transformed those who climbed among them.
By overcoming physical and mental challenges
inherent in mountaineering, climbers discovered
in themselves a new identity, one shaped almost
completely by intense experience of this new and
extraordinary land.
Canadians began to make their own maps of
the mountains and create their own language and
vocabulary of experience. Through the Canadian
Alpine Journal their stories became the foundation
of a growing literature and a new history. This
developing history became an imaginative
invitation for Canadians who would never have
dreamed of being mountaineers to explore
themselves through exploring their mountains.
Canadians began making their own first ascents
in the mountain west, in the Yukon and, finally,
in the high Arctic. In time, a distinctly Canadian
mountaineering community emerged. It wasn’t
long before Canadian climbers were establishing
a reputation not only at home but abroad, in the
Alps, the Andes and, finally, in the Himalayas.
A national organization with sections all across
the country, the Alpine Club of Canada continues
today to reaffirm our identity as a people and to
build our international reputation as a vibrant
alpine nation. Because of the ACC, Canada is now
recognized worldwide, not just for its mountain
scenery, but for our strong and uniquely Canadian
appreciation and protection of our mountain
landscapes.
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In relative, terms the Alpine
Club of Canada came out of
nowhere. It arrived on the
country’s Winnipeg doorstep
fully formed, fully alive,
poised to spend a century, if
necessary, to create a unique
mountain culture in Canada.
The Club’s one hundred
year legacy is born out by
the great devotion that
Canadians now lavish upon
their mountains.
Building a National Alpine Tradition
W
hile some advanced climbers today
might dismiss the Alpine Club of
Canada as being irrelevant to their
experience, the Club was never meant to serve only
those at the advanced end of the mountaineering
spectrum. Right from the beginning the Club’s
founders recognized that there would always be
loners, climbers who didn’t want to belong to a club
because they didn’t need others to motivate them.
It was never the Club’s goal to stand in the way
of individual achievement. If anything, its larger
objective was to create a culture in Canada that
would make such achievement possible. Having
done just that, the Club sometimes finds itself
being lapped by its own cumulative success. But
that does not diminish its history or its relevance in
contemporary times.
The Alpine Club of Canada was not created to
promote mere summit bagging. It was not only the
activities of the Alpine Club of Canada that were
important, but their purpose. The Club’s motto says
it all. Sic itur ad astra. This way to the stars. The real
lesson of this motto is of course figurative. Through
this literary device the high minded founders of the
Club invited subsequent generations of members to
seek not just physical but also spiritual heights. For
the likes of Arthur Wheeler and Elizabeth Parker,
the summit was not just an end, but a means to
become a better, more complete person. Everything
the Club did supported the creation a national
mountaineering culture commensurate with the
vision of making Canadians better people by
experiencing and appreciating their mountains.
We discover upon its Centennial that what
the Alpine Club of Canada has accomplished
by way of mountaineering is as important as the
mountaineering itself. The accomplishments of
the Club begin with the offering of mountain
adventure which, by design, led to major national
contributions to geography and cartography,
science, land use and conservation, mountain
literature, art and photography, and history. Each
of these elements gradually and cumulatively
contributed to the establishment of a unique
Canadian alpine identity. It is by way of this
identity that the rest of the world now knows us.
Mountain Adventure
The foundation of the Alpine Club of Canada
has always been mountain activity. That the Club
held its first annual national mountaineering camp
barely four months after its inception offers a
clear idea of how committed the founders were to
ensuring that the Club’s name was synonymous
with adventure. Alpine Club of Canada members
didn’t just talk about climbing, they did it. By
10 Alpine Club of Canada
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2006
design, the membership regime encouraged
neophytes to learn the basic techniques in the
company of mountain guides and expert leaders.
The goal was to learn by doing. The core of the
Club, however, was its active membership.
In a very short time the annual General
Mountaineering Camp became an institution. If
climbing was the heart of the Club, then camps
were its soul. The Club’s extensive huts system
would later become its body, but by that time many
of the preliminary goals of the Club had already
been achieved.
A.O. Wheeler recognized from the outset,
however, that climbing alone was not purpose
enough to make the fledgling club relevant in the
public imagination. The Club needed the help of
scientists, writers and artists to create an accurate
picture of the glory of Canadian peaks in the minds
of Canadians. A special clause in the membership
bylaws allowed non-climbers to become active
members without climbing a peak provided they
had contributed significantly through their work to
knowledge and appreciation of the alpine.
On Geography and Mapmaking
The original purpose of the Alpine Club of
Canada, and the reason for its scientific focus, was
the great uncompleted task of simply defining the
Canadian alpine. When the Club was formed in
1906 there were still 20,000 to 25,000 square miles
of unknown mountain terrain in the southern
Rockies of Canada alone. No one knew exactly how
much additional terrain remained unmapped in the
Coast Ranges or in Canada’s seemingly limitless
north. The need to define these blank spaces alone,
according to surveyor and mapmaker Arthur
Wheeler, was reason enough to create an alpine
club in Canada.
The Advancement of Science
Canadian mountains should not just be a
gymnasium, Wheeler argued, but also a classroom.
Arthur Wheeler believed that it was the duty of all
mountaineers to know everything they could about
the landscapes through which they travelled.
One of the truly remarkable elements of the
ACC’s founding commitment to science was that
extraordinary and enduringly significant early
research into important aspects of study such as
glacial recession was done by ordinary people. These
included the famous Vaux family who undertook
pioneering glacial and landscape change studies in
the Rockies and Selkirks in the late 1890s and early
1900s. It also includes important ongoing early
research undertaken by Arthur Wheeler himself
and others in the Yoho Valley and elsewhere.
There is nothing quixotic about the Alpine Club of Canada: it is a sane, sober
institution, organized by sane, sober men. As indicated, its mission is manifold.
The education of Canadians to an appreciation of their alpine heritage, is of itself
a raison d’être. The Canadian Rocky Mountain system, with its unnumbered and
unknown natural sanctuaries for generations yet unborn, is a national asset. In
time we ought to become a nation of mountaineers, loving our mountains with
the patriot’s passion.
—Elizabeth Parker, 1907
There was a period of almost two decades
when the bulk of research on the natural history of
Canada’s mountain ranges was being undertaken
almost exclusively by the Alpine Club of Canada
and its members. Though scientific research
continued to be published by the ACC, its later
focus turned more exclusively to adventure.
Land Use and Conservation
Right from its inception, the Alpine Club of
Canada announced that one of its principal roles
was to champion the expansion of the national park
system and to promote appropriate use in mountain
regions throughout the country. Wheeler’s role in
the mapping of the mountain west allowed him
huge influence on federal land use policies, an
influence he made sure the ACC shared. As the
Club’s membership grew and members became
familiar with the country’s mountain regions, the
ACC became the country’s first national lobby for
conservation. It influenced developing policy with
respect to how national parks should be managed
and was also instrumental in the formation of
provincial parks such as the ones created around
Mount Robson and Mount Assiniboine. The ACC
later fought bitter battles to prevent inappropriate
development inside and surrounding mountain
national parks, a role that it continues to play, in a
much larger field, today.
Mountain Literature
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ALPINE
CLUB OF CANADA COLLECTION AT THE
WHYTE MUSEUM OF THE CANADIAN
ROCKIES
The founders of the Alpine Club of Canada
recognized the importance of both writing and
record to the building of the foundation of alpine
appreciation in Canada. The moment the Club was
formed, it created a library so that members could
read and learn about their mountain heritage. There
were 17 books in
the ACC library in
1906, all of them
classics today. Eight
of these treasures
were written by
Club members. The
next task was to
create a journal of
record for Canadian
mountaineering,
mountain science,
photography and art.
Only a year after the Club’s formation, it
published the first volume of the Canadian
Alpine Journal. It was Wheeler’s intent that the
journal should immediately set a high standard
for relevance and appearance. Using the annual
record of The Alpine Club in Britain as a model,
the ACC exploded into public consciousness with
a publication that rivaled anything that existed
in the country at the time. It was no small feat
for a fledgling club with a membership of only
a couple of hundred climbers to publish a book
length journal complete with photographs and map
inserts. It did so to prove, right from the outset,
that the Alpine Club of Canada was a serious, wellorganized and highly ambitious project undertaken
in a new spirit of alpinism in Canada. The most
amazing thing about this sub-culture was that
you could belong to it even if you didn’t live in the
mountains. Even if you lived in a distant flatland
city you could be part of it. All you needed to
belong was a subscription to the Canadian Alpine
Journal and a desire to climb the heights.
Appreciating Art and Photography
Another important foundation established
at the formation of the Alpine Club of Canada
was its strong support of mountain art, and in
particular photography. Because of the short time
frame for the completion of the first volume of
the Canadian Alpine Journal, Arthur Wheeler was
approached by the Detroit Photographic Company
which volunteered to place their series of Canadian
Rockies views at the disposal of the Club for
“illustrative purposes”. The ACC didn’t need them.
Photographs, instead, were offered by the Club’s
own members. Included among the contributors
are many of the most famous figures in the early
history of Canadian mountaineering. Through
these images, Canadians began to see the glory of
the peaks and imagine the drama associated with
climbing them. Over the last century, some of
the best alpine photography in Canada has been
published in the Canadian Alpine Journal.
Creating a History
Through a century of cumulative accomplishment
in each of these domains, the Alpine Club of Canada
has helped create an inter-generation appreciation
for this country’s mountain regions. It has also
built a foundation of leadership and training that
allows Canadians to understand and appreciate our
mountains and to share them safely with visitors
from all over the world. By way of these achievements
Canada is recognized around the world for its unique
mountain places and remarkable mountain culture.
The Club’s founders would be very proud.
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Volunteer organizations
in particular depend upon
leadership to embody
the purpose and provide
the energy, enthusiasm
and vision that will
inspire members to the
highest levels of on-going
commitment. Over the past
one hundred years, many
great Canadians have served
as the Club’s President or as
members of its Executive.
Strong leadership and
member commitment have
allowed the Alpine Club of
Canada to prosper in good
times, and to endure when
other organizations would
have failed.
Extraordinary Leadership and Vision
M
ost organizations do not live a hundred years. Imperfections in their purpose or structure prevent
growth, personal animosities creep into their operation or they lose sight of their reason for
being and fail. The Alpine Club of Canada has had some low moments when there were doubts
as to its viability, but strong leaders always appeared and, no matter the circumstances, the Club’s purpose
and mandate proved an adequate foundation for a revitalized future.
The precedent of strong leadership was set at the Club’s inception by its founders. Arguably, there have
been few Canadians who have ever lived that had more passion for mountains and mountaineering than
Arthur Wheeler. But Wheeler didn’t build the Club himself. Like all great leaders, he was able to attract
around him people of like or similar interest and passion upon whom he could call to advance the Club’s
noble aims. Arthur Wheeler and Elizabeth Parker may have been an unlikely duo, but they were certainly
a complementary one. He was a surveyor and climber and a supreme organizer. She was a nationalist, a
writer and a supporter of literature and the arts. Together they became the powerful force that ensured that
the Alpine Club of Canada came into existence fully formed with a purpose and a constitution that would
survive a century.
The Club has had 31 different Presidents over the past century and at least five times as many
volunteers who have assumed senior executive positions over that period. All deserve to be remembered.
A. O. Wheeler
President 1906 – 1910
A. P. Coleman
●
The formidable Arthur Oliver Wheeler was the
Club’s first President. He helped bring the ACC
into existence in 1906 and remained President
until 1910. If the Club’s constitution didn’t forbid
Presidents to be in office for more than two terms,
A.O. Wheeler might still be President of the ACC.
The custom then, as now, was that Presidents
often assumed other duties after their terms were
completed. Wheeler was the founding editor of the
Canadian Alpine Journal in 1907 and remained in
that position for the next 23 years. Wheeler was
also the driving force behind two of the Club’s most
successful expeditions, the 1913 Mount Robson
camp and the legendary 1925 first ascent of Mount
Logan. A.O. Wheeler also served as Honorary
President from 1926 to 1945. Not surprisingly,
a mountain in Glacier National Park was named
for Wheeler. Nor is it any wonder that one of the
Club’s highest service awards is named for him. He
was a giant.
J. D. Patterson
Centennial Gazette
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2006
W. W. Foster
The man who replaced A.O. Wheeler as
President of the Alpine Club of Canada was no less
of a legend. Born in Lower Canada (Quebec) in
1852, Arthur Philemon Coleman became a highly
respected geologist, and taught at the University
of Toronto from 1891 until 1922. He made three
famous expeditions to the Rockies between 1888
and 1893 during which he solved the mystery of
the exaggerated heights of Mounts Hooker and
Brown at the summit of Athabasca Pass. In 1907
and 1908, Coleman pioneered the exploration
of the Mount Robson area. He recorded these
and other adventures in his classic The Canadian
Rockies, New & Old Trails which was published in
1911. Coleman then went on to conduct pioneer
explorations of the Torngat Mountains in 1915
and 1916. A charter member of the ACC, he held
the offices of Chairman of the Toronto Section
and Eastern Vice President before serving as
President between 1910 and 1914. He later served
Dr. J. W. A. Hickson
Dr. F. C. Bell
as Honorary President. Mount Coleman, in the
Canadian Rockies, is most deservedly named for
him.
J.D. Patterson succeeded Coleman as President
in 1914 and, because of the hiatus in the Club’s
activities during World War I served until 1920.
Born in Richmond Hill, Ontario, John Duncan
Patterson made his living as a farmer. Patterson
enjoyed climbing, but often gave up opportunities
to do so to lead expeditions for less energetic
members. To quote A.O. Wheeler: “He was one
of Nature’s gentlemen whose kind and unselfish
character placed him high among his fellows, he
will be remembered as one who was most worthy.”
World War I changed Canada. Between 1920
and 1924, the Club came under the disciplined
control of an extraordinarily competent military
officer named W.W. Foster. Major-General
William Wasborough Foster was born in England
in 1875. He served at the front during the first
World War, and was decorated no less than 15
times. Billy, as he was known, was also the Military
Commander of western Canada during the Second
World War. But above all else, Foster was a fine
climber. He was a member of expeditions that made
the first ascent of Mount Robson in 1913, and the
first ascent of Mount Logan in 1925. In his diverse
post-military career, Foster held many important
positions. He was the Deputy Minister for Public
Works in British Columbia, a member of the B.C.
Legislature and the Chief of Vancouver City Police
Department. At the time of his death, he was the
Honorary President of the Alpine Club of Canada.
This man is most deserving of a book on this life.
The Alpine Club is nothing if not diverse in its
membership. With a legacy of surveyors, geologists,
farmers and soldiers as Presidents, it was time for
an intellectual. Born in Montreal in 1873, Joseph
T. B. Moffat
H. E. Sampson
A. A. McCoubrey
William Andrew Hickson held a doctorate in
philosophy and taught at McGill University from
1901 to 1924. He climbed for five seasons in the
Alps before turning his attention to the Rockies.
His ascents in the Alps included traverses of the
Grepon and the Matterhorn. In 17 seasons in the
Rockies and Selkirks, he made over 30 major first
ascents, including Pinnacle Mountain, Mount
Chephron and Mount Moloch, and a fine new
route on Castle Mountain Tower. J.W.A. Hickson
served as President of the ACC between 1924
and 1926. At the time of his death, he was the
Honorary Chairman of the Montreal Section.
J.W.A Hickson was succeeded as President in
1926 by Dr. Fred Bell. By profession, Bell was a
respected physician and hospital administrator.
By avocation he was a mountaineer. Bell lived
in Winnipeg and Vancouver and was an active
member of these sections. He attended many
Club camps starting as early as the 1907 General
Mountaineering Camp in Paradise Valley. He took
part in the first ascent of Wenkchemna Peak in
1923. He is remembered today in part, due to his
generous donation that was used to build the Bell
Cabin at the ACC Clubhouse in Canmore.
Fred Bell was succeeded in 1928 by T.B. Moffat.
Thomas Black Moffat was born in Fergus, Ontario
in 1870. A jeweler by profession, he later became
the chief engraver for the prestigious Henry Birks
and Company. Tom Moffat joined the Alpine Club
of Canada in 1911. During his climbing career, he
made over 100 ascents including Mount Robson
and the first ascent of Wenkchemna Peak in 1923.
In 1930, Mount Moffat, near Maligne Lake, was
named in his honour.
In 1930 Herbert Sampson became President.
Sampson was born in Toronto in 1871 but later
moved to Regina where he practiced law as Senior
A. S. Sibbald
C. G. Wates
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13
Crown Prosecutor for 35 years. During his climbing
career, he climbed over 75 peaks, including first
ascents of Mount King Albert in 1929 and Coronet
Mountain in 1930. Herb Sampson attended 39
General Mountaineering Camps between 1911 and
1956. Sampson was made the Honorary President
of the Club in 1945.
Herb Sampson was succeeded in 1932 by A.A.
McCoubrey. Alexander Addison McCoubrey
was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1885 but later
settled in Manitoba where he began working for
the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mac, as he was called
by his friends, was instrumental in introducing
the Club to backcountry skiing. Much of his
explorations were in the Purcells, crowned by his
discovery and first ascents of the Leaning Towers.
In addition to being President, he also served as the
Manitoba Section Chairman and the Editor of the
Canadian Alpine Journal for 10 years from 19311941. It is said that McCoubrey died at his desk
while in the final stages of editing the 1941 edition
of the CAJ.
Andrew Sibbald became the 10th President of
the Alpine Club of Canada in 1934. Sibbald was
born in Owen Sound, Ontario. He practiced law
in Saskatchewan from 1914 to 1936. Sibbald made
his graduating climb at the Club’s Cataract Creek
camp in 1917, after which he seldom missed the
General Mountaineering Camp. Sibbald also served
as the Club’s Treasurer for many years and was a
charter member of the Canadian National Parks
Association, formed in 1923. He was buried near
his old friend, A.O. Wheeler in Banff.
Born in England in 1884, Cyril Wates moved
to Edmonton in 1909, where he was employed
by the local telephone company. He joined the
Club in 1916, graduating on the Monarch at a
camp at Simpson Pass. He attended 20 camps,
E. Brooks
●
S. R. Vallance
Centennial Gazette
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2006
E. O. Wheeler
and climbed more than 50 peaks, including the
first ascent of Mount Geiki. The Club song book,
Songs for Canadian Climbers, was entirely due to
his initiative, as was the building of the ACC hut
in the Tonquin Valley which now bears his name.
Wates was President between 1938 and 1941, when
he was succeeded by the legendary Eric Brooks.
Born in England in 1902, Eric Brooks was a
teacher by profession and joined the ACC in 1929.
Brooks was President during the extended period
between 1941 and 1947 when club activities were
curtailed by gasoline and other forms of rationing
put into place because of World War II. Until his
death in 2001, Brooks devoted much of his energy
to the Club. He was Honorary President from
1954 to 1964 and represented the Club at The
Alpine Club centenary in London, England where
he was made an Honorary Member. He acted for
many years as the Camp Manager of the General
Mountaineering Camp. In 1954 Brooks was elected
Honorary President and in 1995 he was awarded
the A.O. Wheeler Legacy Award.
Sydney Vallence joined the ACC in 1932
and served in many executive capacities at both
the section and national level before becoming
President in 1947. Born in Warwickshire in
England in 1890, Vallance came to Canada in 1907.
In his professional life he was a well-known and
highly respect lawyer who practiced in Calgary
and Banff. Vallance made over 100 ascents during
his climbing career, and often climbed with the
legendary Italian, Lawrence Grassi. Syd also held
office with the National Parks Association and the
Skyline Hikers. The ACC hut in the Fryatt Valley is
named after him.
In 1950, the ACC was once again in the
competent hands of one of a long line of amazing
Wheelers. The son of A.O. Wheeler, Sir Edward
E. R. Gibson
H. A. V. Green
and 1960 – 1964
Oliver Wheeler was born in Ottawa in 1890. He
attended the early ACC camps as both a camp
helper and later as a climbing leader. In 1910, he
joined the Royal Engineers, served in the Great
War and then joined the Survey of India. In 1921
he surveyed Mount Everest where, along with
Mallory, he examined the approach to the East
Rongbuk Glacier and up the North Col which
became the standard approach to the mountain
before World War I. He became Surveyor General
of India in 1941. In 1943, Brigadier Wheeler was
knighted. Upon his retirement in 1947, he returned
back to Canada and again became active in the
ACC.
E.O. Wheeler was succeeded as President in
1954 by another military officer, Rex Gibson. Born
in Essex, England in 1892, Gibson came to Canada
in 1926 and farmed near Edmonton. He served in
both World Wars and took part in the training of
the Lovat Scouts in 1943 and 1944 in the Rockies.
He pioneered many routes in the Jasper area,
especially in the Tonquin Valley. He was an early
pioneer of ski touring in the Rockies. In 1937, he
became the first person to climb the four 12,000
foot (3658 m) peaks in the Canadian Rockies. He
made over two hundred climbs, many of them were
first ascents. Tragically, Gibson died while in office
in a climbing accident on Mount Howson in 1957
and was replaced by Harry Green.
Born in Scotland in 1888, Harry Green
immigrated to Winnipeg in 1912 where he worked
for the legal department of the Canadian Pacific
Railway. Harry served as Club President from 1957
to 1958 and again from 1960 until 1964.
John Brett was President of the ACC between
1958 and 1960. Born in Switzerland in 1885, Brett
spent his youth in Geneva, climbing many of the
peaks in the greater Alps. He came to Montreal in
J. F. Brett
R. C. Hind
R. Neave
1913 and worked as a Canadian Pacific Railway
engineer. In 1928, John recognized the potential of
climbing in the Laurentians and in 1932 climbed
Arabesque, which opened up climbing in the
Val David area. In 1942, John helped found the
Montreal Section.
Following the second term of Harry Green,
the presidency of the Club fell for two years to the
modern climbing legend Bob Hind. Born on a farm
east of Edmonton in 1911, Robin (Bob) C. Hind
became a successful electrical engineer. He was also
an ambitious climber. He made over 250 climbs
of which 26 were first ascents. He climbed all the
12,000 footers, in the Rockies, and climbed in
Britain and the Alps. Bob Hind was involved with
the Club for almost 70 years and served in many
executive positions including President and finally
as Honorary President. The climbing hut on Mount
Assiniboine is named after him.
By the time that Roger Neave became President
in 1968, he had already developed a fine reputation
as a climber. A civil engineer for the Imperial Oil
Company in Sarnia, Ontario, Roger made over 35
first ascents including Molar Tower near Mount
Hector. He climbed in all the major ranges of
B.C. as well as in Peru. In 1933, he came within
150 m (500') of the summit of the then unclimbed
Mount Waddington. He was active in exploring the
Premier Range of the Cariboo Mountains and the
Stikine Icefields in Northern B.C.
Phil Dowling was born in Ontario in 1929. He
was a graduate student at the Imperial College of
Technology in London before making his home
in Edmonton, Alberta. He was a member of the
1967 Yukon Centennial Expedition, assisting the
coordinator, David Fisher, with equipment and
the commissariat. He was a member of the team
that made the first ascent of Mount Alberta in the
P. J. Dowling
D. R. Fisher
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Centennial Gazette
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Yukon Centennial Range. Dowling also climbed
Mount Logan. Phil was President of the ACC
from 1968 to 1970. In 1979, Dowling wrote The
Mountaineers: Famous Climbers in Canada, which
was published by Hurtig.
Phil Dowling’s close friend Dave Fisher
succeeded him as President in 1970. Before
becoming President, Fisher was active in the rebuilding of the Toronto Section and served as its
Chairman from 1959 to 1962. He climbed in the
Alps, Alaska, Karakoram, Andes and the Rockies.
He made a south to north traverse of Mount
Athabasca in 1963 and in 1964, he was on the first
ascent of Mount Bastisti in the Italian Military
Group from the Elk Lake Camp. He acted as the
Chairman of the Club Re-organization Committee
from 1964 to 1966 and was the Coordinator of
the Yukon Alpine Centennial Expedition in 1967.
Fisher’s wife, Marnie, edited the official account of
that monumental season which became part of the
ACC legend.
Stan Rosenbaum succeeded Dave Fisher as
President in 1972. Rosenbaum arrived in Montreal
from England in 1957. He attended the 1957
Tonquin Valley camp, and joined the Montreal
Section. Living in Ottawa since 1961, he served as
Ottawa Section Chair, Eastern Vice President, and
Safety Committee Chair. He climbed in the Tetons
and the European Alps, and made various climbing
and skiing visits to Baffin Island, Ellesmere Island,
the west coast of B.C. and the Yukon.
Don Forest was one of the best known and
most liked climbers of his generation. Forest
inherited the presidency of the ACC in 1972,
during a tempestuous period in the Club’s history.
An engineer by profession, Don only started
climbing at the age of 43. This did not stop him,
however, from becoming the first person to climb
S. Rosenbaum
●
D. Forest
Centennial Gazette
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2006
J. Tewnion
all the 11,000 foot (3353 m) peaks of the Rockies
and the Selkirks. At age 71, he became the oldest
person to climb to the west summit of Mount
Logan. He was a member of the Calgary based
Grizzly Group of climbers. He also served as
President of the Calgary Mountain Club. The ACC
named a service award after Don in 2002.
John Tewnion was President of the ACC for
the four years between 1976 and 1980. Tewnion
emigrated from Scotland to Edmonton in 1950
where he became a practicing civil engineer.
He was the first Chairman of the Camps and
Expeditions Committee. After managing the
General Mountaineering Camp for eight years
he was awarded the Distinguished Service Badge
in 1976. He earned his Silver Rope on the Yukon
Centennial Expedition in 1967.
Ted Whalley came to Canada from
Lancashire, England in 1950. At the National
Research Council in Ottawa he led a department
investigating the behaviour of materials at ultra
high pressures. Whalley’s climbing career spanned
four decades, extending into the 1970s when he
organized five expeditions to unclimbed areas of
Baffin and Ellesmere Islands (Mackinson Inlet
1976, 1978). He served as Chairman of the Ottawa
Section, the Safety Committee and Eastern Vice
President before becoming President between 1980
and 1984.
Peter Fuhrmann was born in Germany and
came to Canada in 1955. He made first ascents
in Canada and Peru and the Himalayas. He
served as the first President of the Association
of Canadian Mountain Guides before becoming
Club President in 1984. Under his leadership the
Club was revitalized and was able to move in new
directions. He was instrumental in the development
of the Canadian Alpine Centre at Lake Louise.
E. Whalley
P. Fuhrmann
Professionally he worked in the role of the
Mountain Specialist with Parks Canada. Fuhrmann
also served as Honorary President of the Club for
the period 2000 until 2005.
Ken Hewitt was born in Edmonton in 1950 and
joined the ACC in 1974. He served as Chairman of
the Calgary Section from 1980 and 1982, and then
as President between 1988 and 1992. Under Ken’s
term, the ACC was restructured to allow sectiononly members to become full members and was an
active participant in the building of the Canadian
Alpine Centre in Lake Louise.
Born in Winnipeg in 1944, Doug Fox served as
Treasurer of the Vancouver Section, and national
Treasurer and Publications Committee Chair of the
Club, before becoming President in 1992. In 19951996 he served on the Club’s Finance Committee.
Doug climbed throughout the Coast Range of
B.C., in the Yukon, North Cascades and Europe,
for more than 20 years.
Mike Mortimer was born in England and
raised in southern Africa. He travelled and climbed
around the world for seven years before settling in
Canada in 1973. He was in turn Chairman of the
Calgary Section and later the Huts Committee
where he laid the foundations for the modern
hut system. He organized three major mountain
leadership conferences for the Club in the 1980s
and organized and ran North America’s first
conference on Energy and Waste Management
Systems in Alpine Shelters in 2001 when he
was President. Later as the Club’s first External
Relations Director he represented North America
at the UIAA (International Mountaineering and
Climbing Federation). Mortimer’s enthusiasm
brought a great deal of the vitality to the Club to
during the period from 1994 to 2001 when he was
President. His great passion for the Club was the
K. Hewitt
D. Fox
M. K. Mortimer
foundation for its high profile Centennial in 2006.
He was made an Honorary Member in 2005.
David G. Toole was born in Winnipeg. He
joined the Montreal Section in 1984 and became
Chairman of the section in 1989. He was elected
as national Vice President of Services in 1993, then
as Secretary in 1994, Treasurer in 1996, and served
in 2000 as both Secretary and Treasurer. In 2001
he was elected President. After his presidency he
served as the Club’s first Director of Planning and
Development.
Cameron Roe attended his first General
Mountaineering Camp in the Freshfields in 1976.
He has served in several positions in the Calgary
Section including Chinook editor, Vice-Chair and
Chair of the section. He has been and remains
active both at the section level in Calgary where
he is currently the Section Librarian and on the
National Board, most recently as the Vice President
of Activities for almost 10 years. Cam has been
awarded the Distinguished Service Award, and is
also a second generation Silver Rope recipient, with
his father, Dick Roe, being awarded the Silver Rope
in 1973. Cam became President in 2005.
Beyond Presidents and Executive, another
strong feature of leadership in the Alpine Club of
Canada is its long legacy of competent, committed
and highly energetic Executive Directors. From
Arthur Wheeler in 1908 to the remarkably diverse
Bruce Keith a century later, the ACC has always
benefited from strong leadership.
D. G. Toole
C. M. Roe
President 2005 –
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17
In the 19th and early 20th
century, women were
excluded from involvement
in alpine clubs in many
places in the world. This
was not the case in Canada.
Right from very beginning,
women played a vital role
in defining this country’s
mountaineering culture. This
paid big dividends over the
past century for now some
of the best climbers and
most competent professional
guides in Canada are women.
A Woman’s Place is in the Mountains
A
Mary Jobe and Bess
MacCarthy at Lake O'Hara
in 1909
●
s a driving force behind the creation of the
Alpine Club of Canada, Elizabeth Parker
is an improbable figure. Not only was she a
woman, but she was one who wasn’t a mountaineer.
She did however possess a strong interest in
the alpine. In the summer of 1904, she took her
children to Banff so that she could benefit from the
recuperative powers of its hot springs and revitalize
her health in the fresh, clean air of the Canadian
Rockies. She remained there for 18 months and
began writing newspaper and magazine articles
about the mountains for Canadian publications.
Though she came to love the mountains deeply, her
frail health did not permit her to become a climber.
She could see, however, how climbing could help
women become stronger and more independent.
Meeting Arthur Wheeler helped her pave the way
for women to become mountaineers in Canada.
With a woman as a founding member and
first elected Secretary, the ACC welcomed women
into its executive ranks at a time when few other
national mountaineering clubs welcomed women
at all. At the ACC’s first official camp in July 1906,
15 women were among the 44 members graduated
into the Club. In its first year, 77, or a full quarter
of the Club’s 310 members were women. Word got
out quickly that women
were not only welcome
in this club, but that
they could flourish
within it.
The first woman to
climb a major mountain
in western Canada
was Philadelphia’s
Mary Vaux Walcott. In
1900, with her brother
George Vaux Jr. and
guides Christian Häsler
Sr. and Edouard Feuz
Sr., wearing knee-high
hob-nailed boots,
woollen stockings, a
woollen gymnasium
suit, felt hat, heavy
gloves and snow glasses,
she climbed 2643 metre
Mount Field. Not a
mountaineer, Vaux,
along with brothers
George and William,
became a highly
respected pioneer of
glaciology, contributing
scientific articles to the
CAJ. While William
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2006
was a founding member of the American Alpine
Club, in June 1906 all three joined the fledgling
ACC. In 1914, Mary was made an Honorary
Member.
In 1916, New Jersey’s Elizabeth “Bess”
MacCarthy was one of four, including guide
Conrad Kain, to make the first ascent of Bugaboo
Spire. She joined the ACC in 1909 – her husband,
Albert “Mack” McCarthy, joined in 1911. Another
American, Caroline Hinman, first visited the
Rockies at the 1913 camp. An enterprising tour
guide who led women’s trips to Europe, for the
next 40 years she led month long horse assisted
expeditions throughout the Rockies. Sufficiently
smitten, one client, Lillian Gest, attended her first
ACC Camp in 1931. Gest would return to the
Rockies nearly every summer for the rest of her life.
In 1939 Gest, Christine Reid, Kathleen Chapman
and Jean McDonald were the first women to climb
3747 metre Mount Columbia, guided by Edward
Feuz Jr. A noted philanthropist, Gest donated to
the ACC and served as Vice President in 1956-57
and 1957-58.
American Polly Prescott joined the Club at
the 1926 Tonquin Valley Camp, and remained
a prominent member until her death at 100 in
2003. She was the first woman to receive the
ACC’s Silver Rope for Leadership, in recognition
of leading “manless” climbs of Mounts Louis and
Edith Cavell with Marguerite Schnellbacher.
Prescott also served as the ACC’s American Vice
President from 1947 to 1950 and 1959 to 1960.
Canadian Ethne Gibson started climbing in the
mid 1930s, making a special effort to be on Rex
Gibson’s rope. Continuing to climb after giving
birth to Kathleen in 1953, Ethne supported Rex
after he became ACC president in 1955, attending
camps and creating handmade menu cards for the
annual Club dinner. After Rex died in a climbing
fall in 1957, Ethne continued to ski tour, believing
lifts were cheating. She contributed generously to
the construction of the Wates-Gibson Hut, which
was named for Cyril Wates and Rex Gibson.
Among Canada’s most famous women
mountaineers, Phyllis Munday placed the first
female boot on Mount Robson’s summit in 1924.
The following year Phyl and her husband Don
embarked on their decade long odyssey to reach
the Coast Mountains’ Mount Waddington. As a
Vancouver teenager, Munday hid her skirt under
a log while climbing, then put it back on before
returning home. She was involved with the Red
Cross, Women’s Volunteer Corps, Girl Guides
and B.C. Mountaineering Club. Not willing to be
viewed a lesser climbing partner because she was
female, Munday insisted on carrying at least as
Nancy Hansen on Lyell 3. The first woman (and sixth person
overall) to climb all 54 of the Canadian Rockies peaks over
11,000 feet (3353 metres)
PHOTO BY COLIN JONES
much weight as men and was often the only woman
on trips. She climbed over 100 mountains, making
over 30 first ascents. The Mundays’ daughter Edith,
born in 1921, made her first climb at 11 weeks. In
1938 Munday was made an Honorary Member and
Silver Rope Award recipient. She served as CAJ
editor from 1953 to 1968, and became Honorary
President in 1971 – the only woman to hold the
position. In 1972, Munday received the Order of
Canada. In 1995 she received the A.O. Wheeler
Legacy Award, and in 1998 the ACC sponsored
Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival
was designated the Phyllis and Don Munday
Award. Munday died in 1990 at 95.
Okanagan native Elfrida Pigou began
mountaineering in 1949, joining the ACC that
year. She made numerous first ascents and put
up new routes in the Coast Mountains, Rockies
and Bugaboos. Pigou led Vancouver Section trips,
contributed to the CAJ, gave slide shows and
helped build huts.
Still backpacking today, in the 1960s Alice
Purdy explored the Coast Mountains, making an
early ascent of Mount Waddington and first ascents
in the Pantheon and Hurley River region.
As Canadians made a name for themselves on
the international mountaineering stage through
the 1970s and 80s, Canadian women shared the
spotlight. Kathy Calvert and Judy Sterner organized
the first all-women’s expedition to Mount Logan
with Lorraine Drewes, Cathy Langill, Diana Knaak
and then 21-year-old Sharon Wood. For 24 days
the team worked up the King’s Trench on skis
establishing six camps, but not quite making the
summit. In 1983 Calvert, her sister Sylvia Forest,
Martha McCallum and Lin Heidt succeeded as
the first all women’s team to ski the 130 kilometre
Bugaboos to Rogers Pass traverse.
Then in 1986, Sharon Wood became a legend
in mountaineering worldwide by becoming the first
North American woman to climb Mount Everest.
Diny Harrison marked another first for a North
American woman in 1992 when she became a fully
accredited professional mountain guide. Eleven
years later, Diny became the first woman to serve as
(acting) president of a UIAGM member federation.
Four of Canada’s now seven female ACMG full
From various climbs during five summers I believe that any woman with fairly
sound organs can do mountain climbing with very great benefit to body and mind.
I am convinced that making a fairly dangerous climb, where every sense must be
alert and cool, makes a woman more fearless in attempting difficult tasks in her
ordinary life. The ideas gained of the beautiful and sublime cannot be valued.
—Mary E. Crawford
Mountain Climbing for Women, Canadian Alpine Journal, 1909
mountain guides, Helen Sovdat, Kirsten Knechtel,
Sylvia Forest and Alison Andrews have led
numerous ACC alpine adventures.
Canadian women haven’t just made their mark
as mountaineers. In addition to being a leading
Squamish climber in the early 1980s and an
energetic ACC trip leader, Tami Knight is known
internationally for her irreverent climbing cartoons.
Though not an ACC member, in the ice and
mixed climbing game, Kim Csizmazia was the 2000
women’s Ice Climbing World Cup champion and
the first woman to consistently onsight WI6 and
first woman to climb M10.
In recognition for her immeasurable
contributions to the Club, and particularly for her
efforts to keeping the GMC alive in waning years
Louise Guy received the A.O. Wheeler Legacy
Award in 1998. That same year, Bev Bendell, having
been awarded the Distinguished Service Award in
1985, was also awarded the A.O. Wheeler Legacy
Award for her tireless contributions to all aspects of
the Club’s activities.
Women continue to make important
contributions to Canadian mountaineering.
Kicking off the 21st century in style, in 2003
Nancy Hansen, ACC National Office director
and prolific trip leader, became the first woman
and only the sixth person to climb all 54 of the
Canadian Rockies Peaks over 11,000 feet (3353 m).
Completing her quest in less than half as many
years as her predecessors, she climbed in high style
on sometimes very technical routes.
While women have consistently comprised
between 26 and 40 per cent of the Club’s
membership over the past century and have won
over two-dozen Silver Rope or Distinguished
Service Awards, as well as Honorary Membership
and Special Awards, the Canadian mountaineering
club that started out so progressively has yet to
welcome a woman President. There are women in
the Club that think it is time to change that.
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19
Everyone knew in 1906
that mountaineering was
dangerous. One of the
primary goals of the Alpine
Club of Canada was to
accelerate the development
of local climbing skills
so that Canadians could
become competent at
travelling in their own
mountains. Through annual
mountaineering camps,
the ACC created the first
courses in mountaincraft in
the country and in so doing
established a century-long
relationship with professional
mountain guides.
Sharing the Rope: Guiding and the ACC
A
s the Canadian Pacific Railway opened up
the Canadian west in 1885, British and
European mountaineers began arriving
to claim Canada’s plentiful unclimbed summits
– none of which remained in Europe’s Alps.
Mountaineering in those times was almost solely
the pursuit of the educated upper class, many of
whom had climbed with professional European
guides. After American Philip Stanley Abbot fell to
his death on an unguided attempt of Mount Lefroy
in 1896, a campaign was begun to encourage the
CPR to hire Swiss guides to work at its resort hotel
properties at Glacier House, Field, Lake Louise
and Banff. Returning to Lake Louise in 1897 to
avenge the death of Abbot, one of the climbers
hired Swiss guide Peter Sarbach to guide the party
up Mount Lefroy and to prove that climbing could
be enjoyed safely. In 1897 Sarbach became the first
professional mountain guide to lead a party to a
Canadian summit and a national mountaineering
tradition was born.
In organizing its first camp in 1906, the Alpine
Club of Canada decided the services of professional
mountains guides should be included. The CPR
had employed Swiss guides at Glacier House since
1899, when Edouard Feuz and Christian Häsler
appeared outfitted in tweed jackets with waistcoats
and ties, knickers and nailed boots with long wool
socks, climbing ropes slung over their shoulders and
ice axes in their hands. By 1902, Swiss guides were
also permanently stationed at Lake Louise.
For the ACC’s inaugural camp, the CPR
“loaned” the Club two
There were ascents and descents which no one
of their guides, Edouard
but an expert or a fool would attempt alone. Thanks
and Gottfried Feuz.
to the guides, however, these were made without
With the camp hosting
difficulty.
over 100 members,
experienced volunteers
—Reverend A.M. Gordon
led numerous climbs.
The Ascents of Mts. Marpole and Ambadamo
But for many, having
Canadian Alpine Journal, 1907
the proficiency of
professional Swiss guides made difference between
summitting or not.
For the next 23 consecutive years, the railway
Swiss guides worked at the annual Club camps,
the only exception occurring in 1926, when two
of the Canadian National Railroad’s guides, Hans
and Heinrich Fuhrer, worked at Jasper’s Tonquin
Valley camp. In so doing, the world’s first national
mountaineering club to welcome women into
its ranks also provided its average, middle class
members the opportunity to explore the high alpine
in the company of professional guides. At the time,
this was normally an extravagance reserved only for
the wealthy.
European guides didn’t just leave their mark on
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Canadian summits, but also on our ski heritage.
When Austrian Conrad Kain decided to seek
adventure in Canada’s unspoiled mountains in
1908, well-known Viennese climber Erich Pistor
recommended Kain’s guiding talents to the CPR.
Responding it had already hired its guides for the
upcoming summer, the CPR suggested the ACC
might be interested. Pistor wrote A.O. Wheeler,
who promptly promised Kain a summer job. Not
only did Kain make a great impression at the 1909
Lake O’Hara camp, come winter he made an
equally great impression on the children of Banff,
Alberta by introducing them to the sport of skiing.
As inspiration for Banff ’s first ski club, Kain helped
instill a Canadian love for skiing.
After building the first alpine hut in 1902 five
kilometres from Glacier House, Swiss guides went
on to build Abbot Pass Hut in 1922. These alpine
refuges became the foundation for what later would
become today’s expansive system of Alpine Club of
Canada huts.
It was only a matter of time before Canadians
would qualify as professional guides in their own
mountains. Born in Golden British Columbia, as
a young man Ken Jones worked as a porter for the
Swiss guides in Lake Louise. Under the diligent
tutelage of Edward Feuz – son of Edouard – Jones
served his mountain apprenticeship and by the mid
1930s became the first Canadian-born professional
mountain guide.
In 1941, 18 ski camp participants arrived
at Stanley Mitchell Hut in Little Yoho Valley
under the capable direction of A.A. McCoubrey.
A recently arrived mountaineer and experienced
Swiss ski instructor, Bruno Engler, was hired
as guide, while Jones was hired as cook. On the
first morning of the camp, novice skier Douglas
Adcock broke his leg on a patch of breakable crust.
Realizing he should be evacuated to Field as soon
as possible, Jones, Engler and McCoubrey built a
sturdy toboggan using only a few nails, cord, two
stout spruce spars and parts of the hut’s only chair.
Heading out on the hard 2 a.m. snow, Engler towed
while Jones steered, and the patient was delivered
safely to Field.
For more than a decade, Jones’s contributions
became integral to the camps’ success, prompting
Winnipeg Section member Roger Neave to write,
“The hard-working member of the party was Ken
Jones in his triple capacity of cook, guide and
instructor. However, he seemed to thrive on it and
after a morning or afternoon of ski-ing he would
dash back to the hut ahead of us and have the meal
practically on the table by the time the rest of us
arrived.”
By 1950, only two Swiss guides were working in
Roger Laurilla
ACMG mountain guide and
ACC Vice President, Activities
Christian Häsler and
Edouard Feuz
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE VAUX
FAMILY COLLECTION AND THE WHYTE
Canada, Ernst and Edward Feuz, who were guiding
privately. To stimulate interest in mountaineering
and its guide services, CP brought Edmund
Petrig and Walter Perren from Switzerland to
the Chateau Lake Louise. When their contracts
expired in 1955, mountaineering interest was so
low that CP released them and Petrig returned
to Switzerland. Then in the wake of two separate
accidents that claimed four lives on Mount
Victoria and the lives of seven teenage boys on
Mount Temple, Perren accepted a National Parks
Service offer to organize mountain travel and
rescue training for park wardens and aspiring
guides. Throughout the late 1950s, Perren taught
basic mountaineering skills to dozens of park
wardens who were more comfortable on horseback
than on glaciers and steep cliffs, and Canada’s
first generation of skilled mountain rescuers was
born. When Perren became too busy to examine
guide candidates, he suggested those who he had
already passed, including Austrian Hans Gmoser,
form their own association under the auspices of
Parks Canada and the ACC. Established in 1963,
the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides’
founding members included Peter Fuhrmann,
Hans Gmoser, Brian Greenwood, Heinz Kahl, Leo
Grillmair, Dick Lofthouse, Eric Lomas, Willie
Pfisterer, Hans Schwarz and Frank Stark. 43 years
later, there are now more than 100 fully accredited
ACMG guides in Canada.
Throughout the 20th century, dozens of
European guides
who explored
the Canadian
mountain
wilderness chose
to settle here.
From the CP
employed Swiss
guides of the
early 1900s, to
those recruited
to work in the
burgeoning
helicopter skiing industry during the 1970s and
80s, European guides didn’t just hold the rope, chop
steps on steep icy slopes or warn novices away from
hanging cornices. Coming from countries where
roads and villages and ski resorts and gondolas were
as numerous as the peaks themselves, those guides
shared their love and enthusiasm for exploring the
Canadian wilderness with their Canadian clients,
who in turn developed an enriched appreciation of
their own mountains.
Many of these professional mountain guides
took a direct interest in the Club’s direction, as
Peter Fuhrmann did in establishing the Wapta
Icefield huts, and serving as the Club’s President
from 1984 to 1988. Similarly in 2005, Canadian
born ACMG guide Roger Laurilla was named the
ACC’s Vice President of Activities.
Mountain guides have been in the employ of
the Alpine Club of Canada for a hundred years.
During this time, they exerted a quiet but formative
influence on Canada’s developing mountaineering
tradition. By exhibiting excellent route-finding
skills, leading edge climbing ability and cool
judgment in trying or dangerous situations, they
demonstrated to North Americans the physical and
mental toughness that were the hallmark of Swiss
mountaineering competence. With them they
brought significant evolutions in mountaineering
technique garnered from long experience in the
Alps. But, more importantly perhaps, they brought
an attitude about mountains and a disposition
toward climbing that would gradually change the
way many Canadians would think about their
own summits. The Swiss had a reverence for the
alpine which would gradually permeate the fabric
of Canadian culture. Through the Swiss guides,
Canadians would gradually learn the real value
of the overwhelming nature that was their alpine
birthright. It was this guiding community that
made manifest the meaning of having so many
mountains. That community is no longer Swiss,
but Canadian, and one of the central vehicles for it
becoming so was the Alpine Club of Canada.
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21
From the moment of its
inception, one of the main
goals of the Alpine Club of
Canada was to make it easy
for Canadians to experience
their own mountains. By
providing comfortable,
safe climbing experiences,
it was held that over time
we would become a nation
of competent mountain
travellers with a deep
sense of what the Canadian
alpine means to us and to
the world. For a hundred
years, Alpine Club of Canada
mountaineering camps have
done just that.
Camps in the Clouds
T
hat a four-month-old Canadian alpine
club should decide to host a national
mountaineering camp was – to say the very
least – an ambitious undertaking. Travelling in style
aboard the Canadian Pacific Railway, eager campers
arrived at Field, B.C. in Yoho National Park on
July 8, 1906. The next morning most travelled 10
kilometres to Emerald Lake on foot, while some
rode in carriages or perched aboard commissariat
wagons. The procession was made up of dozens
of horses and wagons carrying food, cooking
equipment, 40 unwieldy canvas tents, bedding,
climbing ropes and personal luggage – including
proper dining attire. A camp on this scale had never
before been undertaken in the Canadian west, and
certainly not by such a young organization.
Over 100 ACC members paid a dollar a day
each to congregate in a temporary tent village
at Yoho Pass. They rose before the sun to climb
routes on eight mountains, gathered for meals and
companionship in the dining pavilion and shared
jokes, stories and songs around a giant evening
bonfire. By the end of
Thanks to Mr. Wheeler, the “meet,” which began
the week, participants
as an experiment, ended as an institution.
declared the event a
resounding success.
—Elizabeth Parker
The enterprise had
Report of the Secretary
been made possible by
Canadian Alpine Journal 1907
generous donations
from the Dominion government, who in the “spirit
of patriotism” had donated $500, the Alberta
government who contributed $250, the CPR who
loaned tents, canopies, cooks and the services of
two of their Swiss guides, Eduoard and Gottfried
Feuz, the North West Mounted Police who also
loaned tents, and the generosity of four outfitters
who volunteered their services – Bob Campbell,
The first Alpine Club camp at
Tom Martin, Jack Otto, Elliot Barnes and Syd
Yoho Pass in 1906
Baker.
PHOTO FROM THE CANADIAN ALPINE
The camp was divided into Residence Park,
JOURNAL 1907
Official Square and the
horse paddock, with
tenting areas subdivided
into male, female and
married quarters. The
massive dining tent
accommodated all 100,
with meals served from
early morning to late
at night. A bulletin
board announced the
daily programs. In the
Square, a robust fire
burned unceasingly,
brightening up for the
evening hours. From
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2006
the main camp, participants embarked on overnight
trips to climb distant peaks, and to explore Yoho
Glacier where a row of metal plates placed across
the ice tongue marked its rate of flow, and rocks
marked its advance or retreat.
The camp’s chief mountaineer, Morrison
Bridgland chose the varied rock, snow and ice
route up 3066 metre Vice President as the official
climb, and on July 10 nine climbers graduated to
the standing of active members – including two
women. By camp’s end, 44 had graduated, 15 of
them women. The average ascent time had been
seven hours, the average descent three hours.
That the camp unfolded as it did was no
accident. The Club’s constitution provided for an
annual summer camp where graduating members
could qualify for active membership and where
all members (except subscribing members) were
welcome to gather for climbing or mountain study.
The camp was also the site of the Club’s annual
general meeting, which followed the Sunday church
service. At the AGM, the camp was declared a
financial success, with money left over disbursed
among the outfitters, with a small balance going to
the Club.
Although hosted in remote corners of the
magnificent mountains of western Canada, from
the beginning, the camps could not operate outside
of the realm of world events. The 1920 Assiniboine
Camp was billed as Coming Home Camp for Club
members who had served in WWI. Running in
conjunction with A.O. Wheeler’s Walking Tour, it
attracted over 300 people, with Rudolph Aemmer
and Edward Feuz serving as guides.
The bustling camp scene would be repeated
every summer for the next 100 years, and would
provide Canadians numerous opportunities for
first ascents of Canadian mountains. Preparations
for the annual gatherings involved cutting trails,
swimming horses across turbulent rivers, building
rafts and hauling three or four tonnes of food,
canvas, stoves, wooden boxes and even hay. The
Club’s camps were the highlight of virtually every
member’s year, offering opportunities to share the
lessons, the joys and the laughs generated by a
week’s mountaineering exploits.
In 1946, Bill Harrison was hired to manage
the camp in the Bugaboos, an undertaking
involving three hard days’ pack train travel from
Spillimacheen. An experienced outfitter, Harrison
was awarded the contract for the 1947 Glacier
Station camp in Rogers Pass and again for the 1954
camp in the Goodsirs, thus beginning a family
legacy that continues to this day.
Through the 1950 and 60s, every member of
the Harrison family, including Bill’s wife Isabel
Bill Harrison, outfitter and
guide in the early ACC camp
tradition
PHOTO COURTESY OF R.W. SANDFORD
Brad Harrison leads a rope
team, 2004 Icefall Brook
General Mountaineering
Camp
PHOTO BY JACQUELINE HUTCHISON
and their six children worked at the camps
as horse wranglers, packers or cooks – their
dinners becoming the meals of legends.
Though not a climber, Bill Harrison was a
scrambler who appreciated climbers’ exploits.
He spent a lot of time hunting above
treeline, walking his horse as much as he
rode it.
Over the decades, technology brought
changes to the camps. In 1962, guests rode a bus
on a road still under construction from Jasper
to Medicine Lake for the Maligne Lake camp,
finishing their journey by boat.
Then for the 1967 Centennial Steele Glacier
camp in the Yukon, helicopters were used for the
very first time to ferry guests and supplies. Bill
Harrison, his son Brad recalls, didn’t much like
using helicopters, preferring to trust his horses.
In 1967, the Canadian government awarded Bill
Harrison the Centennial Medal, and in 1976 he
became the only non-climber to be named an
Honorary Member. Bill died in 1993, at the
age of 88.
With three decades of family history
invested in the Club’s annual camps, Brad
Harrison gradually took over the ACC camp
tradition from his father. Brad had ridden
into his first camp at Jasper’s Fryatt Creek
at the age of three aboard his brother’s
horse. Nearly 25 years later, when the
economic downturn of the 1980s negatively
affected registrations for the GMC, Brad
put together a proposal for the 1985 camp.
He drew up a budget, arranged logistics,
Campfire during the 1965 Glacier Lake General Mountaineering Camp
PHOTO BY LEN
CHATWIN
secured requisite permits and hired staff, all under
the agreement that if he lost money that would be
the end of the camps. He managed his first camp,
a two week event at Wates-Gibson Hut in Jasper’s
Tonquin Valley with about 20 guests sleeping in the
hut, with a cook tent erected outside. That year the
camps made a profit and Louise Guy became Chair
of the Camps Committee. In an effort to encourage
interest in the camps, Louise mailed out hand
written invitations to the following year’s camp.
Since then, the General Mountain Camp has
flourished. In addition to overseeing all the tents,
kitchen supplies, helicopter flights, guides and
cooks, Brad also leads guests on climbs. Flowing
with the times, Camp Committee organizers have
worked hard to minimize the impact of the annual
camps. The historically popular evening bonfires
are now contained in giant drums. Trees are no
longer cut down for tent poles – those needed to
hold up the large canvas cook tents are flown in by
helicopter. In the mid 1960s, meals stopped being
cooked over open fires, and are now prepared on
large propane fuelled ranges.
Camp participants have changed too. In the
earlier decades, guests sometimes climbed on their
own without guides. Today nearly all guests expect
to be led by experienced professionals or amateur
leaders. The 2005 camp provided hot and cold
running water and a double shower.
While today’s camps provide more physical
comforts for guests, the atmosphere has changed
little over the last 100 years. The focus remains on
learning to climb safely and joyfully sharing the
experience of Canadian mountains with others.
The 2005 GMC at Moby Dick in the Battle
Range boasted six sold out weeks, each hosting 33
guests and 11 staff, and members look forward to
celebrating the Centennial GMC in B.C.’s Premier
Range in 2006.
2004 General Mountaineering Camp at Icefall Brook in the
Rocky Mountains
PHOTO BY PATRICIA DAUM
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23
Alpine Club members had
life changing experiences
on mountains in Canada
and abroad. They formed
relationships that lasted
a lifetime and told stories
about climbing that made
others want to become
mountaineers. Many of these
stories and accounts found
their way into the Canadian
Alpine Journal. As the official
and permanent record of
Canadian mountaineering,
the CAJ is the DNA of
Canadian mountain culture.
The Canadian Alpine Journal
T
he first volume of the Canadian Alpine
Journal is a true testament to the energy
and enthusiasm of the Club’s founders.
Only a year after the Club was formed, it published
– essentially as its newsletter – a 196 page book
which not only carefully recorded all the details
of the Club’s formation but set the stage for all of
the organization’s future accomplishments. From
the hint of later ascents of Mounts Robson and
Logan, to the widespread popularity of climbing
today, everything the ACC needed to make
mountaineering mainstream in Canadian culture
was already all there in the 1907 journal.
Published in 1907, the first volume of the
Canadian Alpine Journal was essentially a mountain
primer. A great number were printed so that they
could be distributed both as promotion of the
new club and an embodiment of the Club’s goals
and ideals. The vision was ambitious. The CAJ
announced the birth of a Canadian subculture
associated with the exploration of mountains
landscapes. In time this subculture would abide
by its own customs and create its own traditions,
history, legend and heroes. In order to accomplish
these goals, it was
important to establish
I’ve had few honours in my life as rich as
a permanent record
the opportunity to helm the CAJ. Spanning
of the Club’s many
one hundred years, it’s not only one of the oldest
achievements which
publications in the country, but also one of the most
embraced not just
consistently compelling and insightful. The arc of
mountaineering, but all
the Journal traces not only the evolution of climbing
things alpine.
in Canada, but offers a fascinating glimpse of the
We take the
eras that gave birth to those climbers. The CAJ is the
legitimacy and
place where everything gets remembered, including
popularity of
the history of our country itself.
mountaineering for
—Geoff Powter
granted today. It is
Editor, Canadian Alpine Journal
easy to forget that in
1906 only a handful
of Canadians could even imagine climbing a
mountain let alone setting out to do. While
familiar to climbers, mountaineering accounts
and photographs must have made the average
Canadian question if these early mountaineers
had all their mental faculties. The CAJ set out to
completely change that perception. The CAJ was
born fully formed complete with climbing accounts,
maps, articles on history, philosophy and science,
all accompanied by astounding photographs. The
first volume of the CAJ gave the solid appearance
of mountaineering as sane and progressive. It
suggested that mountaineering was the sport of
intellectuals who were not afraid of adventure. The
wide range of articles was meant to appeal to the
broadest range of educated people, for it was held
that it would be these who were most likely have
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
the interest and the means to take up this new
sport. The Club’s founders, however, were right up
front about the hazards. Some photographs, such
as those published with P.D. McTavish’s article
on the ascent of Crowsnest Mountain, must have
caused quite a stir among those unused to pictures
of people clinging to seemingly impossible walls
foreshortened in their steepness no doubt by early
telephoto effects. These never-before-seen in
Canada images were undoubtedly as startling to
readers in 1907 as the photographs we see today
on the cover of Climbing magazine of Alex Lowe
soloing the overhanging wall of an Antarctic
iceberg. They were so different and eye-catching
they could not fail to have the desired effect. They
made people want to climb.
The 1907 CAJ established a number of formal
Alpine Club of Canada traditions, the first being
that of marking first ascents. In so doing, the
journal of record established the foundation that
permitted later generations of climbers to quickly
find out what had been done in the past and
plan attempts on new routes on both climbed
and unclimbed peaks. As a result, Canadian
understanding of the geography of the country’s
mountains established itself firmly in the Rockies
and interior ranges of British Columbia and then
radiated outward to every other range of mountains
on the continent. The earliest volumes of the CAJ
also established the reputation of classic routes on
famous peaks and, by virtue of reports on annual
camps, identified climbing areas where the most
intense alpine experiences could be had in the
shortest period of time.
The 1907 Canadian Alpine Journal laid the
foundation for inter-generational knowledge
of mountain place. It provided a baseline for
continuing exploration of our mountains. A person
discovers that his or her mother or grandmother
did some amazing things that were reported in
the Canadian Alpine Journal. What were they? If
she did that, what might I do? A classic example
begins with Mary, George and William Vaux and
their groundbreaking early research into glacial
recession in the Rockies and the Selkirks in 1890s
and the first decade of the 20th century. A century
later, the Canadian Alpine Journal account of this
work inspired a grandson, Henry Vaux Jr., to visit
the same locations to record landscape change since
his time of his grand-siblings. Record becomes
inspiration which become record and the whole
process iterates itself again and again through time.
The founding purpose of the CAJ was to ensure
that the future could be inspired by stories from
the past. In this purpose, it has been successful for a
hundred years.
Beyond the capturing of historical record,
the CAJ has also played a huge role in the
advancement of mountain literature in Canada.
That the Canadian Alpine Journal aimed right from
its inception at a literary audience is undeniable.
Among the articles in the inaugural edition
was one written by Ralph Connor, who
in 1907 was easily the Canadian literary
equivalent of Margaret Atwood today.
Connor’s books were translated abroad and
sold in the millions. His tongue in cheek
article entitled “How We Climbed Cascade”
is not only the first published work of
Canadian mountaineering humour, it was
also the first work on mountaineering by a
renowned Canadian novelist.
Even in the first volume we are introduced
to the range in mountaineering ability and
literary skill that would be reflected in the
1907 Canadian Alpine Journal CAJ over the next century. The articles in the
1907 Canadian Alpine Journal range from
an hilarious account of a scramble up Cascade
Mountain by poorly equipped amateurs, to solo
ascents without ropes on big peaks by highly
motivated mountaineers like George Kinney. The
writing ranges from the sublime to the pompous. It
is all there in the first volume.
By 1908, it was clear that the energy that burst
forth in 1907 would be sustained. The CAJ would
be marked by good writing, strong imagery and a
marvellous capacity to bring mountain adventure
in previously unknown ranges in Canada and
abroad into the pubic ken. As the decades passed,
the CAJ mirrored the literary style of the day and
the style of each successive cultural period over the
next century. It begins with the classical literary
style borrowed from the educated classes of Britain
complete with colonial euphemisms and clearly
defined class politics typical of the intellectual
milieu of the time. A century later, membership
in the climbing community is no longer confined
to highly literate upper classes. Literary pretence
has almost vanished in society as a whole. Many
climbers write almost in the manner
in which they speak, which does not
The Canadian Alpine Journal has a
always respect traditional grammar
long history of highly respect editors:
and syntax. Words that would never
1907 – 1930
Arthur Wheeler
come to the lips of a gentlemen
1931 – 1940
Alex McCoubrey
climber a century ago are, for better
1941 – 1952
M.D. Fleming
or worse, now in common use, both
1953 – 1968
Phyllis Munday
in climbing and in popular culture.
1969
Pat Boswell
But while language may have evolved,
1970 – 1973
Andrew Gruft
one essential element still connects
1974 – 1984
Moira Irvine
the four generations of contributors
1985 – 1992
David Harris
to the Canadian Alpine Journal. At
1993 –
.
Geoff Powter
the heart of each article is the love of
mountains and a passion for climbing.
As one might expect, the actual climbing
section in the 1907 Canadian Alpine Journal was
very small compared to the science and club news
sections. This was because not much climbing had
yet been done by the Club’s new members. This
would change dramatically over the next few years
and over the century that followed. The Club’s
members would become very active during an early
golden age that ended with the beginning of World
War II and the passing of the first generation
of membership. A different but still very active
period followed the war when a new generation of
climbers took to the peaks. This period came to an
end with the near collapse of the Alpine Club of
Canada in the early 1970s when mountaineering
became so popular and widespread an activity that
many experienced climbers no longer felt they
needed the support of a club to help them advance
their skills or find partners. While the ACC reestablished itself through the development of
leadership programming and the expansion of its
huts system, the Canadian Alpine Journal continued
to record the history of mountaineering and the
rise of new forms of climbing interest both inside
and outside the Club. Because of its longstanding
history of diverse contributors and contents, solid
editing and elegant design, the CAJ remains
today the longest standing and most influential
publication on mountaineering in Canada today.
1980 CAJ: featuring a photo of Don Forest on a rock
spire in the Opal Range in Kananaskis Country, AB
PHOTO BY GLEN BOLES
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
25
Firmly embedded in the
original mandate of the
Alpine Club of Canada is
a strong commitment to
leading edge scientific
understanding of the
Canadian alpine. Though
pursued ambitiously by
Arthur Wheeler, the Club’s
interest in science declined
as the research become more
complex and was taken up
by institutions that didn’t
exist when the Club was
formed. As the mountains
became crowded, however,
the ACC took the lead in
the introduction of new
waste, water and energy
management technology. As
climate change threatens the
alpine worldwide, the Club’s
scientific research mandate
may have to be revived.
1902 Vaux family
photograph of the
Illecillewaet Glacier
●
Science in the High Alpine
A
t the time the Alpine Club of Canada
was formed in 1906, mountaineering was
still in its infancy in Canada. Though our
history focuses mostly on climbers of independent
means and ambitions, most of the climbing at that
time was done as part of formal scientific research
performed in service of nationhood. Though
largely unsung, the real heroes of this period were
Dominion Land Surveyors who, not uncommonly,
would climb up to 200 mountains in their careers
in order to complete the maps that would later
open Canada’s mountain ranges to climbers. It is
not surprising that the Club’s principal founder,
A.O. Wheeler, was a prominent surveyor before
becoming famous as a mountaineer. Other
founding members, including Wheeler’s son, E.O.
Wheeler, Edouard Deville, Col Aime Laussedat,
Morrison Parsons Bridgland, P.A. Carson and the
legendary J.J. McArthur, were, or would become,
well-known and historically respected surveyors.
Complementing the scientific bent of the
surveying community of the day, was a popular
sense created in Europe that mountaineering,
even at the amateur level, ought to be tied directly
to scientific inquiry. Mountaineering should be
exercise for the mind as well as for the body.
Arthur Wheeler personally knew many of the
most accomplished amateur as well as professional
scientists of his time and made sure there was a
prominent place for them in the newly formed club.
While A.O. Wheeler applauded and supported
the research of serious amateurs like the members
of the Vaux family, he also recognized the value of
work being done by professional scientists of the
caliber of the American glaciologist William Hittell
Sherzer. In turning the pages of Sherzer’s classic
1902 Smithsonian monograph on the glaciers of
the Canadians Rockies and Selkirk Mountains,
one glimpses where Wheeler might have found
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
his inspiration for the design and content of the
first edition of the Canadian Alpine Journal. That
Wheeler bested even the Smithsonian in the design
and quality of Canada’s first mountaineering journal
says a great deal about his passion for both science
and mountaineering. Science would become an
integral part of this country’s emerging mountain
culture if only because Arthur Wheeler would have
it no other way.
Though not a banner year for reports on bold
new ascents, the 1908 CAJ had a very strong
scientific section which again featured articles by
world renowned experts such as Arthur Philomen
Coleman on geomorphology and Charles Doolittle
Walcott on the fossils of the Burgess Shale. Just as
they do today when scientific articles are published
in the CAJ, some members at the time complained
that the Walcott paper, in particular, was beyond
their understanding. Today, however, the Walcott
article on the fossils preserved in the Burgess Shale
is considered a classic, fully understandable by
anyone with an interest the evolutionary explosion
that took place in the Cambrian seas 543 million
years ago.
Works of advanced academic nature were from
the outset part of Canada’s mountain culture as
defined by A.O. Wheeler and the Alpine Club of
Canada. Through persistence in recognizing equally
accomplishments in mountaineering and mountain
science, Wheeler ensured that the ACC would
transcend “club” status to become the country’s
foremost alpine institution; the repository for all
knowledge and expertise related to the mountains
of Canada. For a time Wheeler made the ACC that
kind of institution. But, just as climbers eventually
transcended the Club’s founding role of establishing
and advancing climbing techniques and style,
universities and government research programs
gradually superseded the ACC’s scientific role.
While the Club moved away from its scientific
research mandate, a surprising range of articles
related to mountain science continued to appear
sporadically in the Canadian Alpine Journal. These
ranged from articles on the long term impact
of glacial recession to the effect of adventure on
mental health. Meanwhile the Club was forced, by
the realities associated with growing development
in Canada’s mountain regions to focus practically
on applied rather than pure research in order to
confront growing human impact issues connected
to its expanded hut operations. In the 1980s, it
became clear that new techniques of supplying safe
water, managing human waste and minimizing
backcountry impacts were essential to the Club’s
future. Under the direction of Mike Mortimer,
conferences were sponsored by the Alpine
Club of Canada resulted in the introduction of
innovative new technology and techniques that
reduced the human footprint of backcountry
huts. Vice Presidents responsible for facilities
and a strong cadre of ACC maintenance staff
have worked with volunteers ever since to put
the ACC at the forefront of environmentally
responsible backcountry hut management. With
the completion of the new Fay Hut in August
of 2005, the Alpine Club of Canada became a
internationally recognized leader in the application
of technology and sound practices in service of
minimization of human impact in the alpine.
Another area in which science has greatly served
the mountaineering community is in the areas of
avalanche research and
First named among the reasons for the Club’s
Global Positioning
existence is the claim of science: “the promotion of
and communications
scientific study and the exploration of Canadian
systems. Because of
alpine and glacial regions.”
research, much more is
known now about the
—Elizabeth Parker
dynamics of avalanche
conditions than ever
before and, with the
advent of helicopters, portable GPS systems and
cellular and satellite telephones, a climber is seldom
out of range of rescue. But all of these technological
innovations have come at a cost. The greatest
uncertainty we face at the centennial of the Club’s
formation are the potential impacts of climate
change on Canadian mountains.
When we think of climate change as we know it
today, it is important to think of where the dawn’s
light first strikes at the beginning of the day. It
strikes the tops of mountains. When we think of
climate change, we think also of where the sunlight
touches the Earth most persistently and that is
2002 Vaux family
where 24 hour light falls on the poles. Because they
photograph of the
are glaciated, both of these regions are within the
Illecillewaet Glacier
domain of the Club’s mandate and interests. We are
already seeing dramatic impacts of change in both
the arctic and the alpine.
At present a temperature increase of between
one and six degrees Celsius is expected to occur in
both these regions. Mountain vegetation zones are
expected to shift upwards by approximately 500
to 600 metres (approximately 1600 to 2000 feet),
the equivalent of one vegetative zone in any given
mountainous region. Alpine species are predicted
to be driven upward and northward into oblivion.
We are already seeing this with species like the pika
along the southern spine of the Rockies.
One quarter of the glacial mass in the Canadian
cordillera has disappeared in the last century.
Climbing routes on Rocky Mountain glaciers are
now changing faster than guidebooks can keep up.
Many climbers are also observing dramatic changes
in the amount of rockfall on many routes as higher
temperatures melt the ice that holds broken rock to
the mountainsides.
Even more troubling are reports of the
unexpected extent of glacial recession that took
place over much of the northern hemisphere during
the unusually hot summer of 2003. What we learn
from this is that it is entirely within the domain
of possibility that glacial recession could accelerate
beyond current rates. It may be that ours will be
the generation that says adios to the mountain
cryosphere. We can only begin to imagine attendant
impacts. Climate change is not something we can
afford to ignore, it is not something that is going
to happen somewhere else to someone else. It is
happening here, now, to us.
This brings up a spectre that is almost too
overwhelming to imagine. It has been predicted
by a study commissioned by Parks Canada itself
that many of our most treasured national parks
and reserves may no longer remain within the
biogeographical regions they were created to
represent. Such a change is not, at present, expected
to occur naturally over geological time but over the
much shorter duration of a few human generations.
Unless feedback mechanisms that slow this process
kick in soon, impacts on the Canadian alpine could
be catastrophic. It will difficult to have an alpine
club if we don’t have any alpine. It may well be
time for the Alpine Club of Canada to revitalize
its science mandate, and to become active in the
climate change debate.
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
27
There is only one official
record of mountaineering
in Canada and that is the
Canadian Alpine Journal.
In 2007, in an event as
important as the Centennial
of the Club itself, the
ACC will celebrate the
100th anniversary of the
publication of its first CAJ.
With a digital version of
all 100 years of this official
record soon to be made
available, Canadians will
at last be able to fully
comprehend the full range of
cumulative achievement that
is the Alpine Club of Canada’s
lasting contribution to our
nation’s identity.
The Centennial of the Canadian Alpine
Journal
E
ven in an expanded edition of the Gazette
dedicated completely to the Centennial, it
is only possible to hint at the rich history
of the Alpine Club of Canada. The expanded story
of the Club’s evolution – and a remarkable year
by year account of the history of mountaineering
achievement in Canada – has entered posterity
through the pages of the Canadian Alpine Journal.
It is unlikely there are more than a few dozen
people alive however, who have read every edition
of the Canadian Alpine Journal. Because many
numbers are hard to find, and complete sets now
very expensive to buy even if one can be found for
sale, all but the most committed are denied access
to the rich history of mountain culture in this
country. This is about to change.
In 2007, the Alpine Club of Canada will
celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication
of the first Canadian Alpine Journal with a stunning
special edition. The Club will also offer members
a boxed set of every volume, digitized and fully
indexed for easy reference. This landmark work will
allow climbers and historians full and easy access
to a century of mountaineering and exploration
achievement in Canada. It will also ensure that the
climbers and writers who did so much to contribute
to the development of our unique mountain culture
in Canada are not forgotten.
With the complete literary works of the
Alpine Club of Canada available digitally, it will
become possible for anyone to observe the flow
Partial page 174 of the 1907 Canadian Alpine Journal digitized for DVD
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
of mountaineering experience and ethic through
time. The Canadian Alpine Journal is a record of
all things alpine. The early numbers of the Journal
constitute a record of the Club’s constitution and
organization. They provide form official “Hansard”
of the Club’s business.
As a record of adventure the Canadian Alpine
Journal is an unparalleled source of access and
route descriptions, observations on conditions,
circumstances, challenges and triumphs built up
over a century of mountaineering in all the ranges
in the country. It is the one place in which a
climber can find information on most of the first
ascents ever done in Canada and all of the major
first ascents done by Canadians abroad.
The Canadian Alpine Journal is also an archive
preserving the history of mountain photography in
Canada as well as a repository of geographical and
natural science observations. Interspersed within
the nearly 10,000 pages of documented climbing
history are poems and songs, articles of philosophy,
and reflections about risk and beauty in the high
places of the world. There is also mountain humour,
cartoons and advertisements that tell us what it was
like to live in world in which people did not travel
and think as we do now. Finally, there are obituaries
remembering Club members, not for what they
were in their professional lives, but for who they
were in the mountains. We should all be so lucky to
be remembered in this way.
There have only ever been nine editors of the
Canadian Alpine Journal. Each has left a different
mark on history. Their choice and ordering
of articles, their acceptance of contemporary
description and vernacular and their determination
of what was really important about what was
happening in mountaineering in their time has
shaped what climbing is today.
The great joy of being able to read leisurely
through 100 years of Canadian Alpine Journals will
be that every reader will be able to determine for
themselves the direction that history has taken us in
our search to understand ourselves by experiencing
our mountains. They will be able to determine
for themselves how the flow of time through the
Canadian alpine has shaped our perceptions about
what is important about where and how we live
in our mountains. That, in its own right, should be
inspiration for expeditions and projects enough
to keep Alpine Club of Canada going strong for
another century and more.
See the next issue of the Gazette for full details
on how you can order your complete digital set of
the Canadian Alpine Journal.
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Our package, including lodging, 3 meals per day, a guide,
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You too can experience the choc of this astoundingly chic
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For details visit www.chicchocs.com.
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Congratulations
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Join Us for a Mountain
Rockies Classic Peaks & Ski Tours
Bow Valley Rock Review
Lake O’Hara Clim
Date: March 11-18
Cost: $1350 + GST
Staff: Geoff Ruttan, Mike Stuart
Date: June 29–July 3 Cost: $995 + GST
Staff: Grant Meekins, Brett Lawrence, D. Nelson
Date: July 29–Aug 5
C
Staff: J. Gudjonson, G. Ru
Ski some of the best classic peaks and tours in the
Canadian Rockies – Mts. Hector, Field and Jimmy Simpson,
Surprise Pass, Dolomite Circuit, Purple Bowl and more.
Based out of the CAC at Lake Louise, this action packed
week will not disappoint!
Kick your summer off by learning or reviewing all of the
basics for multi-pitch climbing & rappelling, short roping
& basic rock rescue. We will spend 4 days climbing &
learning on 5.5 to 5.7 limestone & quartzite.
Join us at the incomparable L
exploration & peak bagging. B
Elizabeth Parker & Abbot Huts
Mts. Odaray, Schaffer, Wiwaxy,
First Summits – Summer
Mountaineering
Peak Weekend – A
Andromeda
Date: June 29–July 3 Cost: $850 + GST
Staff: Peter Amann, Gabrielle Savard
Date: August 3-7
C
Staff: Ken Wylie, Andrew
This hut-based camp on the Wapta Icefield will cater
to members looking to learn or refresh skills in: terrain
evaluation, route selection, glacier travel and navigation,
crevasse rescue systems and more.
Mts. Athabasca and Androme
should be on every mountain
Both over 11,000 feet, these p
and ice climbs of moderate di
The Full Wapta Traverse
Fryatt Valley Clim
Date: July 8-15
Cost: $1350 + GST
Staff: Murray Toft, Pattie Roozendaal
Date: August 5-12
Staff: Aaron Beardmore, M
Learn about glacier travel and summer mountaineering
on this incredible journey across the Wapta Icefield. We
will stay in four different ACC huts, and ascents will be
attempted on several peaks.
The Fryatt Valley in Jasper offe
objectives from the comforts
be on rock, snow & ice, and th
opportunities with lakes, glac
explore.
Fairy Meadow Ski Extravaganza
Date: March 18-25
Cost: $1895 + GST
Staff: T. Styles, S. King, B. Critchley, M. Carpenter
Join us on our annual journey to one of the greatest
backcountry ski destinations in North America – the Bill
Putnam Hut at Fairy Meadow. Great food, great people,
peak bagging and bottomless powder are to be expected.
Moberly Pass Ski Camps
Week 1 Date: March 24-April 1
Staff: L. Andrews, T. & L. Palechuk, R. Andrews
Week 2 Date: March 31 (eve) – April 8
Staff: H. Sovdat, T. Styles, D. Dornian, P.
Roozendaal
Cost: $1995 + GST
Our 2006 tent-based ski camp will be held in this littlevisited area which boasts a deep snowpack, varied terrain,
& mild weather. With access by helicopter, we will sleep in
mountain tents, but will have the convenience of big tents
in which to dry gear, warm up, & eat sumptuous meals.
Bugaboos Ski Mountaineering
Date: April 14-22
Cost: $1795 + GST
Staff: Pat Baird, Felix Camire
Join us in Bugaboo Provincial Park for phenomenal ski
touring and peak bagging. “The Bugs are probably the
single best spot for ski mountaineering in Canada – the
position and views are truly amazing.” (Pat Baird, 2005)
Bugaboos to Silent Pass Traverse
Date: April 21-29
Cost: $1895 + GST
Staff: Conrad Janzen, Ray Norman
The week will involve hard physical effort & unforgettable
rewards as we travel through some of the most
outstanding glaciated geography in the Purcell
Mountains. Ascents of Mt. Conrad & Malloy are possible.
Yukon ACC Centennial Camp
Dates: June 2-18
Cost: $4300 + GST
Staff: Helen Sovdat, Paul Geddes
Women’s Camp
Date: July 9-14
Cost: $995 + GST
Staff: A. Andrews, J. Olson, J. Clarke
The intent of this mountaineering camp is to provide
opportunities for women to work on leading skills & gain
mountaineering experience. The camp will be based out
of the Bow & Peyto Huts on the stunning Wapta Icefield.
Rockies Panorama
Date: July 15-22
Cost: $1450 + GST
Staff: Marco Delesalle, Jeff Bullock
This camp is aimed at aspiring mountaineers & those
who want to explore the heart of the Canadian Rockies.
The week involves traversing through 3 national parks &
staying at 4 classic ACC huts, including the new Fay Hut.
Yoho Valley Centennial Camp
Date: July 16-22
Cost: $1350 + GST
Staff: Cyril Shokoples Peter Amann, Cam Roe,
Dave McCormick, Bev Bendell
This week of hiking, scrambling and mountaineering
will be in celebration of the ACC’s first General
Mountaineering Camp at Yoho Pass in 1906. Based out
of the Stanley Mitchell Hut, most evenings will feature a
special guest speaker.
From camp, ski mountaineering ascents of numerous
snow and ice covered peaks are possible, including
opportunities for first ascents. Mts
Badham (3670 m) and Donjek
Mts. Tsar & Clemenceau Climbing
(3560 m) are a short distance from
camp. A high camp is planned
Date: July 21-29
Cost: $1995 + GST
for the Mt. Walsh/Steele col.
Staff: D. Smith, D. Glowacki, T. Haggarty
Views of Canada’s highest
With its huge relief, grand views & terrific mountaineering,
mountains: Logan,
it will be a very lucky group of members who get to
Lucania, Steele and
venture into this remote country. Climbing objectives
Walsh, will fill the
include Mts. Tsar, Somervell, Clemenceau, Tusk & others.
horizons.
photo by Nancy Hansen photo by Daniel Dufresne
Jumbo Glacier Cl
Date: August 11-19
C
Staff: Roger Laurilla, Ma
The Jumbo Glacier area is the
interior ranges of B.C. Mts. Far
Karnak and Commander, all o
our campsite.
Sorcerer Lodge C
Date: August 18-26
C
Staff: J. Gudjonson, C. Ja
Sorcerer Lodge in the Selkirks
mountaineering objectives lik
Matterhorn and Mt. Pearce. Th
wilderness experience – it is r
the weak-hearted.
55+ Trekking and
Date: August 20-27
C
Staff: F. Taxbock, P. Duffy
This camp is aimed at those o
for easy-to-moderate mounta
spectacular hiking opportunit
Gibson Hut in Jasper, horses a
loads in and out of the hut.
Mountain Photog
Date: Sept. 22 – 24
C
Instructor: Richard Berr
This weekend workshop, duri
concentrates on improving co
skills through lectures, field tr
photographs taken during th
n Adventure
mbing Adventure
2006 Centennial General Mountaineering Camp
Cost: $1750 + GST
uttan, D. Dornian
Dates: July 1 to August 12, 2006 (six one-week camps)
Cost: $1295 (one week) + GST $1195 (additional weeks) + GST
Lake O’Hara for a week of
Based out of the historic
s, climbing objectives include
, Victoria, Lefroy & others.
The Centennial GMC will be held in the Premier Range of the Cariboo Mountains in BC. At an elevation of 2215 m (7400’)
we will have a spectacular campsite situated in a small basin that is graced by the beauty of the Kiwa Glacier. We will have
access to over 15 peaks with varying degrees of difficulty, ranging in height from 2910 m (9550’) to 3520 m (11,550’).
Possible ascents include Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir John Abbott, Richard Bennett, Mackenzie King, Sir Mackenzie Bowell,
Goodell, Twin Towers, Bivouac and Black Martin. The area has great diversity and offers up a variety of climbing from
scrambles to technical rock climbing, as well as the snow and ice of the Kiwa, Laurier, Tete and Black Martin Glaciers. The
camp operates on a seven day, Saturday to Saturday basis. Camp fees cover tent accommodation, guiding
and instruction, sumptuous meals, helicopter flight in and out and group climbing equipment (not
personal gear). This camp is aimed at all mountaineers – from novices to the very experienced.
Athabasca &
Cost: $895 + GST
w Langsford, Deryl Kelly
eda at the Columbia Icefield
neer’s list of peaks to climb.
peaks provide superb snow
ifficulty.
mbing Camp
You Won’t Forget!
Cost: $1795 + GST
Mike Stuart, Matt Mueller
Ecuador’s Volcanoes
Dates: Nov 6-23, 2006 Cost: $4800 (no GST)
Staff: Helen Sovdat, Tim Haggarty
ers excellent mountaineering
of the Fryatt Hut. Climbs will
here are also abundant hiking
ciers, caves & meadows to
Ecuador is a beautiful country that is home to some of
the world’s highest volcanoes. The climbing objectives on
this expedition will include Cayambe (5791 m/18,996’),
Cotapaxi (5895 m/19,335’) and Chimborazo
(6311 m/20,700’). This trip is an excellent choice for
anyone wanting to gain some high altitude experience
with relatively non-technical summits.
limbing Camp
Cost: $1695 + GST
tt Peter, Cam Roe
e “Columbia Icefield” of the
nham, Delphine, Jumbo,
ver 11,000’, will tower around
Climbing Camp
Cost: $2095 + GST
nzen, Z. Robinson
s is surrounded by stunning
ke Mt. Iconoclast, Little
he area is very much a
rugged, remote, and not for
d Climbing Camp
Cost: $1495 + GST
y, D. Toole, T. Cooper
over 55 who are looking
aineering routes and/or
ties. Based out of the Watesand porters will ease our
an ACC tradition since 1906.
Aconcagua Expedition
photo by Jackie Clark
Find Out More
For more information on each camp,
including their levels of difficulty,
please visit our website at
www.AlpineClubofCanada.ca
and follow the links to Mountain Adventures.
Alternatively, call Jon Rollins
at the ACC’s National Office
(403) 678-3200, ext. 112
or email him at:
[email protected]
Dates: Jan 14-Feb 6, 2007
Staff: TBA
Cost: TBA
Aconcagua is the highest peak in the western hemisphere
at 6962 m/22,841’. We
will ascend the normal
route – mostly rocky
terrain with one snow
and ice slope near the
summit. The route is
non-technical, however
the high altitude must
not be taken lightly.
Come and share this
amazing opportunity
to experience other
cultures, austral beauty,
and a challenging
adventure.
photo by Pat Morrow
graphy Workshop
The North Face Centennial Summer Leadership Course
Cost: $325 + GST
ry
Date: July 29-August 5
Cost: $650 + GST
Apply by: May 1, 2006
Staff: Cyril Shokoples, Kirsten Knechtel, Masten Brolsma
ng the peak of fall colours,
omposition and technical
rips and by reviewing
e course.
Held at the 2006 Premier Range GMC, this course is aimed at current ACC trip leaders and will deal
with the following leadership skills: rope handling (specifically in general mountaineering situations);
glacier travel; route planning and selection; navigation; multi-pitch climbing; rescue systems; group
dynamics, interaction and management; and emergency-situation response.
Canadian Mountian Holidays
Heart Grabbing
Mountain Adventures
www.CanadianMountainHolidays.com
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Congratulations to the Alpine Club of Canada
and your centennial anniversary.
200 - 50 Lincoln Park, Canmore, AB
Toll Free North America: 1.866.678.4164 www.yamnuska.com [email protected]
Proud Corporate Member
ALPINE, ROCK & ICE CLIMBING - MOUNTAINEERING - SKI TOURING
SKI MOUNTAINEERING - AVALANCHE SAFETY - HIKING & TREKKING
Giving Direction to Mountain Adventure.
OFFICIAL CLOTHING SPONSOR
2007 SKI WEEK LOTTERIES
●
The Bill Putnam (Fairy Meadow) Hut lottery
will take place on May 1, 2006 for the 2007
ski season at Fairy Meadow.
● The Kokanee Glacier Cabin lottery will take
place on May 22, 2006 for the 2007 ski season
at Kokanee.
Lottery forms are available on the ACC website.
For more info, visit: www.alpinehuts.ca and click
on the Bill Putnam (Fairy Meadow) Hut or
Kokanee Glacier Cabin.
PHOTO BY JOHN
DERICK
Summer Job Opportunities
The ACC is looking for four responsible individuals to work as full time Custodians
at the Kokanee Glacier Cabin (early June to late October) and at the Conrad
Kain Hut in Bugaboo Provincial Park (mid June to mid September).
In order to qualify, you must be:
✔ Honest and reliable
✔ Customer service oriented
✔ Mechanically minded and handy with tools
✔ Experienced in backcountry travel
✔ Physically fit and healthy
Applicants must also have valid standard
first aid and CPR prior to beginning work.
The jobs are loosely scheduled on a weekon week-off basis. During the week-off,
subsidized staff accommodation is
available at the Clubhouse property in
Canmore. Custodians will be paid $90/
day based on a 7.5 hour workday, plus a
car allowance, plus a bonus, if earned. The
deadline for applications is April 15, 2006.
Please submit your resume to:
Carole Perkins, Facilities Administration Manager
[email protected]
Box 8040, Canmore, Alberta T1W 2T8
OR fax: (403) 678-3224
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
37
In order to establish the
Alpine Club of Canada as
an organization of true
international stature, Arthur
Wheeler recognized that its
activities had to embrace the
great remaining climbing
challenges of the day.
Foremost, but not alone
among these, was the ascent
of the highest peak in the
Canadian Rockies. Though
a bold ascent had already
been claimed, there were
doubts about whether the
true summit had in fact
been reached. In 1913, the
Alpine Club of Canada set
out to make sure there was
no doubt whatsoever about
whether Canadians could
climb this giant.
Mount Robson
A
t 3954 metres, Mount Robson reaches 3000
metres above Kinney Lake which lies at its
base. It is not only its height however, that
gives Robson its formidable character, but its sheer
mass. It dominates not just the skyline, but the very
atmosphere of every valley, pass, river, waterfall and
lake in its vicinity.
Viewed from Highway 16, Mount Robson is a
massive layer cake of dark and light rock, stacked
with the fine gradation of a carefully constructed
café latte. Its South Face is split by a glacier and
smeared with snow patches. On its north side, the
mountain harbours one of the most impressive
glacier systems in all the Rockies, via which
most mountaineers attempt to climb the peak.
With Robson towering so high above any of its
neighbours, the prevailing westerly winds struggle
to pass over it, more often than not leaving the
summit enshrouded in clouds, no matter how
pleasant the day at valley bottom. The ensuing
high precipitation levels have created a cedar forest
at Robson’s base that is unique to the Rockies.
Moisture-laden air also causes the formation of
teeth-like pinnacles across the summit crest. There
is no easy route up the mountain, made all the more
challenging by frequently poor weather.
As the Rockies highest, Robson was a highly
sought after prize. At the Club’s 1906 camp, Arthur
Oliver Wheeler encouraged Arthur Philomen
Coleman, a veteran explorer and geologist to
organize an attempt. The following summer
Coleman, his brother Lucius, Jack Boker and an
intrepid reverend from New Brunswick named
George Kinney spent 39 days plotting a course to
the mountain. They returned in 1908, when Kinney
climbed alone through snow clogged chimneys
and across ledges to the lower spine of what is now
known as the Emperor Ridge, turning back at 3200
metres as a storm threatened.
After two attempts, Kinney became obsessed
with making the first ascent of the mountain. In
1909 he embarked on a solo expedition, en route
teaming up with a fit and energetic horse wrangler
named Donald “Curly” Phillips who agreed to
attempt Robson as his very first climb. On their
fifth try at the summit, and in poor weather
believing they were a few hundred feet below the
peak from where masses of snow prevented further
progress, they left a Canadian flag and an ascent
record in the rocks proclaiming they had climbed
the mountain for God, Country and the Alpine
Club of Canada.
While their climb was heralded a great
accomplishment, and the CAJ published the article
Kinney and Phillips co-authored, speculation
brewed as to the veracity of their claim.
Decades later the matter was considered settled
after a team from the Harvard Mountaineering
Club, while descending Robson’s steep northwest
bowl in 1959, found Kinney’s summit register in a
rusty tin can, a few hundred metres below and west
of the summit. To this day, however, no one has
ever doubted the courage the committed Kinney
brought to his many attempts on the mountain.
Wheeler however, had his own plans for
the mountain all along. In 1911 he led a major
scientific expedition to the area with guide Conrad
Kain, photographer Byron Harmon, Curly Phillips
as outfitter and George Kinney as general assistant,
A.H. MacCarthy, Elizabeth MacCarthy, Caroline Hinman,
Conrad Kain and unidentified boy with Hinman party on
Resplendent Mountain. ACC camp at Mount Robson 1913.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHYTE MUSEUM OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES AND
CAROLE HARMON
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
Conrad Kain during the 1913
ACC Robson camp
AND CAROLE HARMON
fifteen to twenty metres high. It was difficult to find
plus four biologists from
a way up from one terrace to another.”
Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian
Not too long afterward, Kain spoke his now
Institute. Bored and restless
famous line, “Gentlemen, that’s as far as I can take
one day, Kain soloed Mount
you.”
Whitehorn. He also made a first
Just then the clouds rolled away to reveal the
ascent of Mount Resplendent
spectacular panorama of peaks and glaciers. Kain
with Byron Harmon. From
wrote they spent 15 minutes on the summit, 10
the summit they admired a
pleasurable, five teeth chattering. Retracing their
stupendous view – including
steps to the shoulder and knowing steep ground
Robson’s eastern side.
and afternoon avalanches would prevent them from
The 1911 expedition served a
returning the way they’d ascended, Kain led them
greater purpose than collecting
down the west side. Working their way down the
plant and animal specimens. It
south glacier, retreating at dead ends and climbing
was the basis of a plan to make
beneath dangerous overhanging ice, they finally
sure the mountain was climbed.
moved off the glacier and onto the rocks, where
In 1913, Wheeler organized a
they spent a cold night with seracs calving off and
special Alpine Club of Canada
thundering nearby. In the morning they worked
camp at Mount Robson.
their way down chimneys and cracks, crossed under
Attendance at the camp
the glacier’s snout, which exposed them to big
was limited to active members
icefall danger, and finally made it to camp at Berg
who rode special luxury cars
Lake.
on the newly completed Grand
It had been by far among the most difficult
Trunk Northern Railway to an
ascents to date in North America and the Kain
unofficial stop near Yellowhead
route was not repeated for 40 years. Wheeler
Pass. Kinney was not there, but Curly Phillips
had his perfect climb, and it was not without its
was in charge of packing. For the summit team,
sensation, as over the campfire, Phillips announced
Wheeler chose W.W. “Billy” Foster B.C. Deputy
that four years earlier he and Kinney hadn’t climbed
Minister of Public Works, and Albert “Mack”
the last 60 or 70 feet to the summit. Wheeler
MacCarthy, a New Jersey banker, retired U.S. navy
officially declared the
captain and prominent
In all my mountaineering in various countries,
1913 climb to be the
American Alpine Club
I have climbed only a few mountains that were
first.
member. The ascent
hemmed in with more difficulties. Mount Robson
In 1924, the Club
was to be guided by
is one of the most dangerous expeditions I have
returned to Robson for
Conrad Kain. Of the
made. The dangers consist in snow and ice, stone
its annual camp, once
event, Foster wrote
avalanches, and treacherous weather.
more setting the stage
the ACC had come
for a notable ascent,
to climb Robson, “…
—Conrad Kain
when with Conrad
the monarch of the
Canadian Alpine Journal, 1914-15
Kain in the lead, Phyllis
Canadian Rockies, a
Munday became the first woman to set foot on
peak which the Club’s Executive had determined to
the mountain’s summit via its South Face route,
make its own.”
followed shortly afterward by four male climbers
On July 30, the three men bivied on the
and Miss Annette Buck. During the 35-hour
moraine and began climbing at first light. They
outing, Munday showed her exceptional leadership
ascended Robson Glacier, climbed the icefall to the
Dome and negotiated the tricky bergschrund. With skills when the group was forced to spend the night
out at 3200 metres.
a thin layer of melting snow on the ice face, Kain
Since Kain led the first Alpine Club of Canada
cut 105 steps in a zigzag fashion to a rock ledge
ascent in 1913, determined mountaineers have
then led up a 60 metre ice slope. After more rock
walls, more snow and ice slopes and lots more steps, pioneered nearly a dozen routes on the mountain.
But none have been more satisfying than those
they reached what is now known as The Roof – a
made when the ACC was young, and great climbers
maze of ice walls.
were making first ascents of great Canadian peaks.
“Never before on all my climbs have I seen such
snow formations,” Kain wrote, “The snow walls
were terraced. The ledges between the walls were of
different widths, and all were covered in loose snow.
I often sank to my hips… Some of the walls were
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
39
With the highest mountain
in the Rockies climbed, the
next major prize was the
highest mountain in the
country – Mount Logan. The
peak’s great remoteness and
almost Himalayan height,
however, would ensure it
would not fall easily. This was
not a mountain that could
be climbed in a day or even
a week. The first ascent of
Mount Logan was a major
expedition that demanded
all the resources of both
Canadian and American
Alpine Clubs. It remains a
difficult climb to this day.
Mount Logan
W
Hauling supplies by sled
hile virtually the entire mountaineering
world was absorbed in the British
attempts on Mount Everest, the Alpine
Club of Canada focused its sights on another of the
world’s great mountaineering challenges – Mount
Logan.
Soaring into the Yukon sky at 5959 metres,
Logan measures 100 kilometres around its base.
The massive, complex mountain supports a 20 km
long upper plateau, most of it above 5000 metres,
surrounded by numerous peaks approaching 6000
metres. At 60 degrees latitude, the region is home
to some of the planet’s coldest weather. Ferocious
storms barge in from the Pacific depositing
monstrous snowfalls that create glaciers of a
magnitude of size exceeded only in Greenland and
Antarctica.
Mount Logan is one of the planet’s greatest
mountains and as such presents mountaineers
with an irresistible challenge. Even today, with
planes and far better and lighter equipment, many
more set out than succeed in reaching its dizzying
summit.
The idea of sending an expedition to Logan
germinated in ACC circles after A.O. Wheeler
brought it up at the 1913 Mount Robson camp. The
idea, however, took a back seat to World War I. Ten
years later the Mount Logan Executive Committee
appointed Albert “Mack” MacCarthy expedition
leader. At that time, just getting to the mountain
promised a huge adventure. Standing 240 km
from the nearest human habitation, not only was a
# V014/AC 0P/808(17)
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
potential route to the summit unclear; the route to
its base was largely unknown.
Through June and July 1924, MacCarthy, Andy
Taylor and Miles “Scotty” Atkinson explored nearly
160 km over 45 days up the Chitina River valley,
then travelled another 80 km over the Chitina
Glacier, Logan Glacier and Ogilvie Glacier to
finally reach the mountain’s base. With its upper
section shrouded in clouds, the climbing route was
still in doubt. The severity of the approach however,
was clear – establishing a base camp on the Ogilvie
Glacier would involve ferrying a mountain of
supplies.
In the dark of the Arctic winter, on February
17, 1925 MacCarthy, Taylor, Atkinson, assisted by
Henry Olsen, Austin Trim, William Meyers, six
horses pulling two big bobsleds and 21 dogs left
McCarthy Alaska with nearly 9000 kilograms of
supplies and equipment. Enduring open water,
ice jams and minus 45 degree temperatures, they
travelled up the Chitina Valley. After 10 days they
reached an abandoned prospector’s cabin and
sent the horses back to McCarthy. Following the
Chitina Glacier’s south flank, they negotiated a
constantly fluctuating gorge carved by a glacial
stream where they had to lead the dogs along a thin
ice shelf frozen to the rock wall hanging above the
raging torrent. They made it through just before
the shelf collapsed. By March 31 they established
camp on the Logan Glacier, from where travel was
relatively smooth onto the Ogilvie Glacier. Fifteen
kilometres further they cached 2150 kg of food,
supplies and equipment for the climb, leaving a
second 450 kg cache not much further above it.
On May 12 the team left McCarthy Alaska
– led by MacCarthy, a retired U.S. navy captain
and veteran of first ascent of Mount Robson, with
deputy leader Howard Frederick John Lambart, a
Dominion government surveyor who worked for
seven years along the Alaska-Yukon border, Major
General William Wasborough Foster, also on the
Robson first ascent, and Andrew Morrison Taylor,
adventurer, prospector, miner and hunting guide,
plus four Americans – Allen Carpe, representing
the American Alpine Club, Henry Hall Jr., R.M.
Morgan and Norman H. Read. MacCarthy, Foster
and Taylor were all 49 years old; Lambart was 45.
In fine weather, they made steady progress to
the Ogilvie Glacier, then moved loads 13 kilometres
further to Cascade Camp, 30 km from the summit.
Working their way up a huge icefall to the top of
Quartz Hill, they ferried another 680 kilograms
of supplies to Observation Camp at 3120 metres,
then on to King Trench, a narrow glacial corridor
beneath the north face of King Peak leading to
King Col on the mountain’s west shoulder.
The 1925 Mount Logan Expedition
leaving Cascade Camp
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHYTE MUSEUM OF
THE CANADIAN ROCKIES
# V014/AC 0P/808(17)
Then the good weather came to an end. The
climbers would battle storms for the rest of the
expedition. Feeling their way up to King Col in fog
and driving sleet, they planted willow wands every
30 metres to mark their route in case of a whiteout on their return. By June 10 they’d brought
ten loads to King Col Camp at 4100 metres, then
sat out a snowstorm until the morning of the 13.
The next day the entire team broke trail through
metre-deep fresh snow.
Wearily working their
With some of our party snow-blind, others near
way through a labyrinth
the limit of exhaustion, and all with either feet or
of crevasses and ice
hands or both touched with frost, I am sure that
blocks, they camped
terrible ordeal on Hurricane Hill will long remain
at 4815 metres. The
in the recollection of every member of the party as
storm returned the next
the most dangerous menace to life and limb the
day. On the 16th they
expedition offered.
reached Windy Camp
—A.H. MacCarthy
at 5180 metres, where
the night temperatures
dropped to minus 38°C.
The next day everyone climbed to a high saddle
between two peaks but through breaking clouds
realized the summit was still a long way away.
Circling north they reached a pass at 5500 metres
leading to the summit plateau. After two more
stormy days, they stumbled back to Windy Camp
in a blizzard, collapsing in their eiderdown sleeping
bags.
On a cold and blustery June 20 they carried
loads to Prospector’s Pass at 5500 metres, where
it stormed through the night. With frozen feet,
Morgan, joined by Henry Hall, descended. The six
others set off at 3 p.m. under clear skies on the 21st,
camping in the pass by 10 p.m. Altitude took its
toll, their actions were slow, painful and inefficient.
Fingers frozen, they packed up the next day and
descended 200 metres to what they would later call
Hurricane Hill. With food and fuel for eight days
stashed at Plateau Camp at 5325 metres, they knew
their strength wouldn’t last that long.
The night of the 22nd, a violent storm nearly
destroyed their small tents. But the next day the
wind subsided and the clouds broke. Foster led,
then Carpe and MacCarthy, with Lambart, Read
and Taylor following on a second rope. Walking
on windpacked snow to the base of a double peak,
they donned crampons to reach the summit – and
realized they must travel another three kilometres
– with a 300 m drop between the peaks.
Placing their last willow wand in the dip, finally
at 8 p.m. MacCarthy led the group along a knife
edge ridge to the summit, where “…we all shook
hands and were foolishly happy in the success of
our venture and the thoughts that our troubles were
at and end.”
Starting down after 20 minutes, dense fog
rolled in and the wind increased. With no wands
and footprints soon erased, they wandered lost for
four hours in the Arctic half-light, stopping at 1:30
a.m. Using ice axes and snowshoes, they excavated
meagre shelters against the storm that raged into
the morning. It took two hours after MacCarthy
ordered them to move to get going; the long hours
of shivering and nightmares having “seriously
drained the small reserves strength of our party.”
Taylor led carefully through the whiteout and
finally they spotted a wand, but soon afterward as
one stopped to adjust a crampon strap, the teams
became separated. Lambart, Taylor and Read
returned to Plateau Camp, while MacCarthy,
Foster and Carpe wandered in fog. Hopelessly lost
they trudged through the night fighting a storm.
Exhausted and hallucinating, they stopped twice to
nap restlessly in snow holes. When the fog lifted in
the morning, they struggled down Plateau Camp
and spent the next 24 hours eating and sleeping.
But the nightmare wasn’t over. Under clear skies
they left behind tents and sleeping pads to climb
Hurricane Hill. Stopping to put on crampons, a
bitter wind tore into them.
Spent and fearful of holding the others back,
Lambart urged them to continue without him,
but MacCarthy would have none of it. Finally
they reached the pass at 5500 metres, took a break
behind some rocks and then continued downhill.
Retrieving their boots at Windy Camp, they
descended to Col Camp where they ate, drank and
slept for 36 hours. Foster was treated for frozen
fingers and toes – some of which were turning
black. From the top of Quartz Hill, the normally
15 minute descent to Cascade Camp took three
painful hours. Their final two-week journey back to
civilization was an arduous and dangerous struggle.
No summit, in the history of the Alpine Club of
Canada was ever more hard-won.
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
41
In the early years of Canadian
mountaineering access was
one of the central challenges
facing climbers. With the
gradual development of its
expanded hut system, the
Alpine Club of Canada was
able to offer safe, if rustic,
refuge in some of the best
climbing areas in the country.
Well maintained and well
run, the Alpine Club of
Canada’s huts offer an open
invitation to explore this
country’s mountains.
Elizabeth Parker Hut, Yoho
National Park, B.C.
PHOTO BY MELODY GROSS
Refuges Among the High Peaks
M
otoring through Kootenay National Park
in a Studebaker on what is now called
Highway 93 South was an exotic thing
to do in 1928, especially if you wanted to visit Fay
Hut. Full of adventure, Alpine Club of Canada
members would drive as far as Marble Canyon
and continue up the Tokumm Creek trail on
horseback – a means of travel many consider exotic
today – to a cozy, dim, but utterly charming single
room log cabin reserved for the exclusive use of
mountaineers. The hut was named for Charles Fay,
the first President of the American Alpine Club
and a great friend of Canadian mountaineering.
Though Fay Hut was not the ACC’s first hut, it
was the first to be built entirely under the aegis of
the Club rather than in association with Canadian
Pacific Railway.
Three generations of hikers and climbers
enjoyed the hospitality provided under Fay Hut’s
peaked roof before it was consumed by a wildfire
that burned much of Kootenay National Park in
August of 2003. The rebuilding of the Fay Hut in
2005 was one of the most positively energizing
events in ACC history and a perfect prelude to the
Club’s Centennial.
At the time of its 100th birthday, the Alpine
Club of Canada is proud to operate 24 huts in some
of the most spectacular mountain landscapes in
the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk and Purcell
ranges. The ACC also operates five section huts in
Ontario, New York State and British Columbia’s
Coast Mountains.
Over the more than 75 years since Fay Hut
hosted its first guests, Alpine Club of Canada
backcountry huts have continued to provide not
only physical shelter from the caprices of high
mountain weather, but welcome refuge for those
who seek spiritual fulfillment among the rocky
peaks and ancient glaciers of our mountains. Log
cabin, stone house or sturdy metal Quonset, ACC
backcountry huts are not merely buildings, they are
mountain homes to which visitors return again and
again with longing and affection.
When the Alpine
Club of Canada was
formed in 1906, attention
was focussed almost
immediately on the need
to build a permanent
facility to accommodate
Club activities and visiting
mountaineers. In 1909,
the ACC’s first Clubhouse
opened its doors on the
slopes of Banff ’s Sulphur
Mountain, close to Middle
Springs. For more than 60 years it remained one
of the grandest heritage buildings in the Canadian
Rockies. When Parks Canada insisted on it being
demolished in 1971, Canada lost one of its greatest
historic treasures. A new Clubhouse did, however,
open later at the present Indian Flats location in
Canmore. Through the commitment of a generation
of committed staff and volunteers, the Canmore
Clubhouse has become a centre for mountaineers
in the Rockies. In 2004 it welcomed guests from
around the world and recorded a whopping 10,778
visitor-nights in its hostel facilities.
While consolidating its operations in Canmore,
the ACC also dramatically expanded its role in
providing refuge among the high mountains by
building new alpine huts and taking over and
restoring huts that had been built by others. In
1919, the Canadian Pacific Railway built a log
cabin at O’Hara Meadows. In 1923, it built a
sturdy stone house at Abbot Pass, on a col between
Mount Victoria and Mount Lefroy above Lake
Louise. The same Swiss guides who hauled supplies
up the “Death Trap” to build Abbot Hut, had also
recommended the location for Fay Hut. In time,
Fay Hut and the huts at Abbot Pass and Lake
O’Hara would become the core of a developing
system of backcountry facilities that would change
how Canadians experienced their mountains. It was
not just the national organization that was involved
in this evolution. Individual Club sections did a
great deal in their own interest, and in the interest
of Canadians.
Eager to promote the Rockies’ regions recently
made accessible by the Canadian National Railway
line, the 20-strong Edmonton Section raised
funds to build a cabin in the Tonquin Valley in
Jasper National Park. Combining its resources
with the Soldiers and Slark-Rutis Memorial
Funds, the Edmonton Section made the cabin
a joint memorial to climbers who lost their lives
in the Canadian mountains and Club members
who gave their lives in the Great War. Clearing
snow to lay the foundation in late June of 1929,
section volunteers battled mosquitoes and steady
rain to finish the hut later that summer. Memorial
Cabin was officially dedicated in mid August,
the day before Capt. E.R. Gibson, W.E. Streng
and “Bunny” Cautley made Outpost Peak’s first
ascent. With no set charge for the general public,
50 cents per night toward maintenance was
suggested. A completely new and much expanded
Wates-Gibson Memorial Hut was built in 1959.
The hut commemorates the contributions to
mountaineering and backcountry skiing by two of
the Club’s former Presidents, Cyril Wates and Rex
Gibson.
Two years after the first
Memorial Hut in Jasper, the
CPR donated its O’Hara
Meadows cabin to the Club,
and members promptly spent
$518 on improvements. They
also paid tribute to the Club’s
Opening the newly
formation by renaming it for Elizabeth Parker. It
constructed Fay Hut, August
was not until 1985 that Parks Canada turned over
2005
Abbot Pass Hut – which it acquired in a run-down
PHOTO BY RICHARD BERRY
state from the CPR in the 1960s – to the ACC.
In the meantime, additional huts were being
constructed throughout the mountain west
with other aims besides meeting the needs of
summer mountaineers. In 1937, Montreal’s Helen
Trenholme donated
… her memory is preserved by the very popular
$1500 toward a hut
tribute inscribed with her name, the ‘Elizabeth
to be named after
Parker Hut’, maintained in one of the most
Stanley Mitchell, in
charming centres of the Canadian Rockies, close by
recognition of his huge
beautiful Lake O’Hara.
volunteer contribution
to the Club and his
—Arthur Oliver Wheeler
great popularity among
The Canadian Alpine Journal 1944-45
beginner climbers.
Despite October snowstorms and the necessity of
using unseasoned logs, Stanley Mitchell Hut was
handed over to the Club in mid-October 1939 and
promptly hosted the Club’s annual ski camp the
following March. Six years later, a two-storey log
cabin located at Rogers Pass in Glacier National
Park and named for Arthur Oliver Wheeler would
become another enormously popular winter Club
destination.
Malcolm “Tabs” Talbot first
Until the 1960s, the ACC’s mountain huts were
joined the Huts Committee
constructed
on site, below tree line and, with the
in 1986. Twenty years and
exception
of
Abbot Hut, built of logs. Helicopter
some 50 work parties later,
technology
however,
facilitated construction of
Tabs, now Chairman of the
shelters
in
less
accessible
high alpine locations
Committee, continues to
where
fi
rst
ascents
were
still
possible. In August
plan and lead work parties.
1964
a
dozen
volunteers
climbed
up to Glacier
In 2006 the intent is to go
National
Park’s
Sapphire
Col
to
assemble
the
to the Bill Putnam (Fairy
country’s
fi
rst
prefabricated
high
altitude
bivouac
Meadow) Hut to replace
shelter. Designed by architect Philippe Delesalle,
the roof, amongst other
this structure marked the beginning of a new era
things. I once asked Tabs
in alpine hut construction and operation. That
why he devoted so much
same year, Bill Putnam and Ben Ferris began
time to the huts. He told
constructing the Great Cairn Hut using stones
me that he felt that when
from a six metre cairn erected in 1953 by Harvard
he retired he would always
Mountaineering Club members sitting out a rainy
have a place to visit and
day. It was completed in 1965, the same year as
stay in the mountains.
Fairy Meadow Hut. In honour of their lifelong
As such l believe that we
support for Canadian mountaineering, Great Cairn
should nominate Tabs as
Hut was renamed Great Cairn Ben Ferris Hut in
one of the best volunteers
1996, and Fairy Meadow Hut was renamed Bill
of the century.
Putnam (Fairy Meadow) Hut in 2003.
—Mike Mortimer
While Putnam focused his attention on the
Selkirk’s remote peaks and glaciers, ACMG guide
Peter Fuhrmann looked to the Rockies’ Wapta
Icefield to facilitate European style traverses.
Starting with Balfour in 1965, the fibreglass
Wapta igloos were predicted to serve a few hardy
ski mountaineers willing to carry packs and
endure stormy nights in the rudimentary shelters.
Conceived by Fuhrmann and funded by Vici and
Lucho Mondolfo and built by Calgary Ski Club
and ACC volunteers, Balfour Hut endured terrific
storms, dismantling and reconstruction with Swiss
Army knives, and plundering by wolverines until
being replaced by a cedar log successor. Located on
Mount Olive’s south side, the refuge served skiers
well for 18 years, until the current hut at the toe of
Vulture Glacier was built in 1989.
Part of the Wapta system, the Peter and
Catharine Whyte Hut is also known as the Peyto
Hut because of its location. The hut started out in
1967 as a 12-person fibreglass igloo. Soon after
construction, it was taken over by Parks Canada
who replaced it with a white wolverine-proof
fibreglass bubble. In 1983 a large Whyte family
donation facilitated construction of the current
building, which was further improved by Huts
Committee volunteers in 2000.
Another generous Whyte donation supported
Bow Hut’s construction in 1968. Easy access
however, attracted unappreciative crowds, so in
1989 Huts Committee Chair Mike Mortimer
spearheaded construction of a new, modern Bow
Hut half a kilometre from the original site. Last
renovated in 2003, Bow Hut features open sleeping
areas, two woodstoves, indoor toilets, propane
cooking, lights and a custodian’s room. This hut also
sets a new high standard for waste, water and energy
management for alpine huts in North America.
In order to complete Canada’s “Haute Route,”
Rocky Mountain Section members built the Scott
Duncan Hut in 1988. Its construction was funded
largely by Calgary’s Duncan family in memory
of their son. Scott Duncan is the only Wapta hut
never run by Parks Canada which, after recognizing
its competence in managing and maintaining
backcountry refuges in sensitive environments,
turned over Balfour, Bow and Peyto Huts to the
Alpine Club of Canada in 1989.
Today, many hikers and climbers are first
introduced to the ACC by staying in a backcountry
hut. By way of this experience thousands of Canadians
have come to appreciate our long tradition of shared
alpine experience, a heritage that would not exist
today were it not for the century-long commitment
of Alpine Club of Canada maintenance staff and
volunteers who have worked so diligently to maintain
and cherish their alpine huts.
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
43
There is one branch of
mountaineering which has
so far received but scant
attention from those to
whom the Rocky Mountains
are a happy hunting
ground, and that is winter
mountaineering by the use
of ski. It is quite easy to see
how this fascinating means
of carrying out mountain
trips in winter has not so far
come into prominence, for
winter sports in the Rockies
are at present in the pioneer
stage only.
—E.R. Gibson
Ice River ice school, led by
Rex Gibson in 1954
PHOTO BY LEN CHATWIN
●
Slopes and Summits
I
n recognizing the potential of skimountaineering, Rex Gibson was just a little
ahead of his time. By the end of the century, the
mountains of western Canada would be heralded
internationally for offering some of the world’s
greatest backcountry and ski mountaineering
opportunities. Alpine Club of Canada members,
including Gibson, were among those who broke
trail pioneering several long distance wilderness
ski traverses and making the first ski ascents of
prominent Canadian mountains.
The Club’s contributions toward the
development of ski mountaineering weren’t limited
to the members’ exploratory ventures, however. Its
over two-dozen backcountry huts continue to this
day to make backcountry skiing more accessible to
growing numbers of enthusiasts. While ACC huts
provide comfort in the rugged alpine environment
in summertime, their value increases greatly
during the harsh, frosty winter months. Huts,
particularly Yoho National Park’s Stanley Mitchell
and Elizabeth Parker Huts, A.O. Wheeler Hut at
Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park, and those
on the Rockies’ Wapta Icefield are popular winter
destinations that make outings not only more
comfortable, but also safer, allowing more and more
people to enjoy the magic of the mountains in
winter.
Skiing came to North America in the later
19th century, imported mainly by Norwegian
immigrants who settled in communities across
Canada. Carving skis by hand from hickory and
other hard woods, they formed ski clubs in virtually
every community in which they settled. They also
exhibited impressive athletic feats at competitions
in ski running, downhill racing and long distance
ski jumping.
But while the majority of early North
American skiers stuck to slopes near – or in – their
hometowns, a few
intrepid adventurers
explored the wilderness.
In 1929, Jasper’s Joe
Weiss skied solo from
Jasper to near the
Columbia Icefield. The
following winter he set
out with four others,
skiing all the way
from Jasper to Banff
following the route that
would later become
the Icefields Parkway.
Hooking up with Weiss
over New Year’s in
1931, Rex Gibson skied
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
into the Tonquin Valley for three days. He wrote
about the trip in the one of the more than a dozen
articles he wrote on skiing and winter travel for the
Canadian Alpine Journal.
The following winter Gibson and Weiss
cranked their turns up a notch, skiing up 3426
metre Resplendent Mountain, neighbour to Mount
Robson. Strapping on crampons for the hard,
windswept upper slopes, they reached the summit
where the winds were so fierce they couldn’t stand.
Retreating quickly to their skis, Gibson later wrote,
“… off came our crampons and on went our skis for
the glorious thrill of the descent of nearly 5000 feet
of glacier under perfect snow conditions.”
That same year, Winnipeg Section members
Campbell Secord and brothers Roger and Ferris
Neave were the first to ski onto the Wapta Icefield.
Starting from Yoho Valley’s Twin Falls Chalet,
they skied up the Yoho Glacier, continuing to the
summit of Mount Gordon. Descending the east
side of the mountain to just below Vulture Col,
they skied up Mount Olive’s flank and scrambled to
the summit. Back on the glacier, they rounded the
north end of Mount Gordon and skied back down
the Yoho Glacier just as the sun set.
In 1937 Gibson explored new ground again,
setting up camp for five nights on the Columbia
Icefield with Sterling Hendricks and Ken and
Hugh Boucher. Using skis, they reached the
summits of Snow Dome, North Twin and
Columbia – Gibson and Hendricks making
mountaineering history as the first to climb the
four Canadian Rockies peaks over 3636 metres
(12,000 feet).
With the first of its annual ski camps in 1937,
the ACC began opening up backcountry skiing
to its general membership – and the public. A 20
year veteran of backcountry skiing in the Rockies,
Selkirks and Purcells, Alexander Addison ‘Mac’
McCoubrey was elected editor of the CAJ in 1930.
He devoted an entire section to ski mountaineering.
In April 1937, McCoubrey hosted the first ACC
ski camp at Lake O’Hara – an excellent venue for
the majority of participants who were likely to be
novices. Despite stormy weather, the camp was
a success. While most practiced their technique
near the hut, five people climbed Mount Schaeffer
and another group made a three-day excursion
to Fay Hut via Opabin Pass. Some participants,
including McCoubrey, Rex Gibson, Ethne Gibson,
Norman Brewster and Dorothy Hartley, would
return year after year to the ski camps. Even though
McCoubrey died just a few weeks before the 1942
camp in Little Yoho Valley, the camps endured
through World War II – although at the 1945
camp women outnumbered men ten to six.
Skiers at the Stanley Mitchell Hut
during an ACC camp in 1947
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ESTATE OF KEN JONES
Through subsequent
decades, ski camps – attracting
as many as 30 people – were
held at the Tonquin Valley’s
Memorial Hut, Stanley
Mitchell Hut and A.O.
Wheeler Hut, in a garage
building at the Columbia
Icefields Chalet in 1947,
and at privately run cabins
at Assiniboine and Mount Robson’s Berg Lake.
Experimenting with new technology, snowmobiles
were used to haul skiers to the Bald Hills above
Brewster’s Lodge at Maligne Lake in 1957 and to
tow skiers uphill at Little Yoho in 1966.
After the formation of the Association of
Canadian Mountain Guides in 1963, the Club
began hiring certified guides to lead camp
participants on ski tours, including Leo Grillmair,
Lloyd “Kiwi” Gallagher, Sepp Renner and Kobi
Wyss. Through the 1970s the camps grew in
popularity, with two camps in 1974 – one for three
weeks at Little Yoho
I feel that this expedition has demonstrated the
and one week at Fairy
feasibility of winter ascents in the Rockies by means
Meadow. Four years
of ski and I trust it will be but a forerunner of
later the Club ran
many trips of a like nature.
five backcountry ski
camps. In 1981 there
—Rex Gibson
were six. Although
interest waned during
the 1980s, in 1991 the Club successfully ran a ski
ascent of Mount Logan and the southern half of
the Great Divide Traverse, from the Columbia
Icefield to Lake Louise. By the 21st century,
numerous Alpine Club of Canada ski camps ran
through the winter, ranging from weekend section
trips to full weeks at fly-in huts, commercial lodges
and tent based camps in the remote Columbia
Mountains, and multi-day wilderness traverses – all
led by professional guides.
While most Canadians are aware of their
countrymen’s stellar talents on the hockey rink,
few are aware of our impressive accomplishments
in the domain of wilderness ski traverses. In May
1967 a young team comprised of Chic Scott, Neil
Liske, Don Gardner and Charlie Locke skied
300 kilometres over 21 days across glaciers and
high alpine passes from Jasper to Lake Louise,
establishing the Great Divide Traverse. Still a
formidable challenge, it went unrepeated for 20
years. Since 1967, numerous high altitude short and
long distance traverses have been pioneered, many
of them by Canadians, including the Southern and
Northern and Cariboos traverses in 1976 and 1982,
the Northern Selkirks in 1976 and the Southern
Purcells in 1982, by some of the country’s most
intrepid ski explorers, including Steve Smith, Don
Gardner and Dave Smith. In 1991 Don Gardner
accomplished his most impressive journey, skiing
900 kilometres in 28 days in March and April from
his Calgary home to the Pacific without tent or
stove, cooking over brush fires and camping in tree
wells.
Kicking off the exploits of a younger generation,
in 1998 Dan Clark and Chris Gooliaff traversed
the Columbia Mountains from McBride to
Kimberley B.C., skiing 700 kilometres over 61
days, but unfortunately they were unable to link
the Northern Selkirks with the Southern Cariboos
through the Monashees. However, in April 2004,
Greg Hill, Ian Bissonette and Aaron Chance
completed the Northern Monashees traverse, skiing
over 200 kilometres across complicated terrain from
Lempriere railway siding to Kirkup Creek near
Revelstoke in 21 days, bagging 21 summits along
the way.
Looking north, in April 2002, Lena Rowat,
Jacqui Hudson, Merrie Beth Board and Kari
Medig, left Chilkat Inlet near Haines, Alaska. For
54 days they skied 700 kilometres across the Saint
Elias Range, spending 18 days climbing 5959
metre Mount Logan along the way. A year earlier,
Canadians Guy Edwards and John Millar, joined
by several friends for various sections, skied the first
complete Coast traverse – 2015 kilometres over
five and a half months from Vancouver to Skagway
Alaska.
While ski resorts experienced declines in
business during the 1990s and into the 21st
century, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering
among the peaks and glaciers of western Canada
have grown steadily. Although modern skis are
constructed of lightweight wood and synthetic
combinations, the feeling of floating on powder
snow hasn’t changed at all. Perhaps, in the superconnected world of 2006, people – with the ACC
providing a myriad of opportunities – are still
finding what Norman Brewster wrote about after
the 1939 Tonquin Valley camp: “All will retain
happy memories, of climbs, of thrilling schusses, of
a sunlit world which contained no newspapers and
no radios…”
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
45
Because of the fierce
intensity of the
mountaineering experience,
climbers often develop a
strong desire to protect the
landscapes they love so that
others might in the future
have the opportunity to be
similarly affected by them.
Right from its inception, the
goals of the Club were made
wholly consistent with the
national park ideal. In 1906,
the ACC began vigorously
volunteering support for the
development and expansion
of our country’s now worldrenowned protected places
system. This important work
continues today in close
association with the Club’s
National and Provincial Parks
partners.
Entrance to Mount Robson
Provincial Park
PHOTO BY R.W. SANDFORD
●
National Parks and Protected Places
A
t the turn of the 20th century, most of the
country’s mountain ranges were still remote
and relatively wild. As the country was
immense and most of its landscapes still largely
pristine, the idea of creating national parks to
protect the best and most representative landscapes
was indeed a visionary ideal. Just as today, however,
the notion of protecting public lands from
economically productive private ownership had
its opponents. Western politicians, in particular,
held that newly created national parks such as
Banff, Yoho and Glacier ought not to be a drain
on the public purse. In order to pay for their own
formation and operation, the managers of these
new reserves had to accept some compromises.
When the Alpine Club of Canada came into
existence in 1906, logging, mining and extensive
development were reluctantly being permitted in
the western mountain national parks. The Club’s
founders could see the direction this was going
and set out to argue eloquently on behalf of the
preservation of these parks through changes in
public policy. With science on its side, the Alpine
Club of Canada became a nationally recognized
champion for protection of spectacular mountain
landscapes and for access to good climbing areas,
not just in the Rockies, but all over the country. As
with so many things associated with the Alpine
Club of Canada, the man behind this was Arthur
Oliver Wheeler.
As one of the country’s most important
surveyors and mapmakers, Wheeler knew the
geography of the mountain west as well as any
living Canadian. He was also very well connected
in both federal and provincial political circles.
With outstanding maps at hand, Wheeler was
able to translate what were once blank spaces
on the map into
concrete geographical
coordinates that
politicians utilized in
land use decisions. For
a time it seemed that
wherever Wheeler
went in the mountain
west, landscapes were
somehow transformed
into national or
provincial parks.
The most productive
period of ACC-inspired
park creation began
in 1911, following
Wheeler’s second and
final term as President.
In that year Wheeler
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
was given a contract by the B.C. government
to survey a road between Port Alberni to Long
Beach on Vancouver Island. It turned out that the
Deputy Minister of Public Works for the Province
of British Columbia, W.W. Foster, was a climber
and he and Wheeler became fast friends. William
Foster had huge political sway and when Alpine
Club of Canada members on Vancouver Island
put forward the idea of creating a reserve in the
spectacular mountains that form the backbone
of the island, the idea was readily embraced by
government. In 1911, Strathcona Park became the
first provincial park in British Columbia.
It was with similar purpose that Arthur
Wheeler made William Foster a member of the
first summit team at the Club’s now famous Mount
Robson Camp in 1913. In that year, Deputy
Minister Foster crafted a special act in the British
Columbia legislature that created Mount Robson
Provincial Park. With this park as the second jewel
in the foundation of a new parks system, other
reserves came quickly into existence. The agents
once again were Wheeler and Foster, but the
vehicle was the Alpine Club of Canada.
In 1913, a survey to delineate the boundary
between Alberta and British Columbia was
initiated by the Surveyor General in Ottawa. This
landmark survey was undertaken by Robert Cautley
of the Alberta Land Survey and Arthur Wheeler,
who was now in charge of the British Columbia
Land Survey. During the first three years, the
survey concentrated on the southern Rockies, from
Akamina Pass to Mount Assiniboine. On February
6, 1922, British Columbia, at the urging of the
Alpine Club of Canada, set aside 5,120 hectares as
Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park.
It wasn’t until the Interprovincial Boundary
Survey was completed in 1924 that enough was
known about the geography of the Columbia
Icefield area that proposals could be put forward
to include it in Jasper National Park. As principal
author of the survey, Wheeler immediately
understood the extraordinary dimensions of this ice
age feature and began pressing for recognition of its
significance. Through his careful lobby, an order-incouncil was passed in 1927 that placed some 2500
square kilometres south of Sunwapta Pass under
national protection.
The Alpine Club of Canada lobby did not
stop at park creation. It was also a principal agent
in the creation of the Canadian National Parks
Association in 1923. The Alpine Club of Canada
and the Canadian National Parks Association then
joined forces to fight hydro-power development
in the country’s national parks. Since then, Club
members have continued under the expanded
This ‘Gateway to Rocky Mountains Park’
was located in Kananaskis until 1930
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WHYTE MUSEUM OF THE
CANADIAN ROCKIES
umbrella of a growing
conservation movement
to press hard for the
clarification of national
park policy in support
of firmer guidelines
for protection of the
country’s mountain
heritage.
The significance
of this lobby over
time should not be
underestimated. While
it would be easy to
view the history of the
mountain west as the
serial decline of the natural character of the region
through exploitation, that is not a true picture of
what has happened. Something very different, in
fact, may be in play.
There is a new history emerging, which
defines human activity in this region based, not
in the context of how we have divided it up and
fragmented it, but in the remarkable steps we took,
once we knew what we had, to restore the Rocky
Mountains both as an ecosystem and as a place.
Among the key
By virtue of its constitution, the Alpine Club
dates in this new
is a national trust for the defence of our mountain
history are 1885, the
solitudes against the intrusion of steam and
year the country’s first
electricity and all the vandalisms of this luxurious,
national park came
utilitarian age; for the keeping free from the grind
into existence at Banff;
of commerce, the wooded passes and valleys and
1886 when Yoho was
alplands of the wilderness. It is the people’s right to
created; 1906 the year
have primitive access to the remote places of safest
the ACC was formed;
retreat from the fever and the fret of the market
1907 when Jasper was
place and the beaten tracts of life.
formed; 1913 when
Mount Robson became
—Elizabeth Parker
a provincial park;
1922 when Mount
Assiniboine park was
set aside; 1923 when Kootenay National Park
was formed; 1930 when the National Parks Act
was passed; 1941 when Hamber was made into a
B.C. Provincial Park; 1984 when the four national
parks together were granted UNESCO World
Heritage Site designation; and 1990 when the three
provincial parks were added to the national parks
under that designation to create one of the most
remarkable and significant large scale ecological
and cultural reserves in the world. This great whole
is much more than the sum of its parts and will
continue to be so long into the future.
The fact that, in a very tangible way, we are
moving in the direction of restoring a landscape
of this magnitude and importance to our country’s
future is something in which the Alpine Club
of Canada should take great pride. Through
individual and collective attention to minimizing
our own impacts, Alpine Club of Canada members
contribute to the sustainable future of our mountain
regions. By striving continuously for ever higher
standards for waste, water and energy management
in the maintenance and operation the Club’s front
and backcountry huts, and by embodying the ideals
of our country’s expansive protected places system
in all that it undertakes, the Club is achieving a
century old goal of sharing meaningfully in the
stewardship of places that mean a great deal to
mountaineers, and to Canadians.
Individual sections, such as the ones in
Edmonton and Calgary, still continue the tradition
of lobbying in strict defence of the national park
ideal. But it is no longer just in the west, or in
national and provincial parks, that Alpine Club
of Canada members continue, individually and
collectively, to press for protection of natural
landscapes and for sustainable land use policy. At
a time of rapid growth and change in our society,
human use issues are becoming complex and more
highly contested. In many climbing areas in the
country, access is becoming a greater and greater
issue. It is perhaps ironic that, a century after its
inception, the Club is now having to defend the
right of access in some of the natural places it
helped save.
As Arthur Wheeler understood a hundred years
ago, we cannot live on our landscapes as we do and
not expect them to change. In the next century, the
Alpine Club of Canada will be faced, along with
its national and provincial parks partners, with big
challenges related to how we should manage and
use our ever more precious mountain landscapes.
Fortunately, we have the founding values of the
Club to direct and inspire us. Sic itur ad astra. Let
our mountains show us the way.
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
47
Throughout the Alpine Club
of Canada’s history there
have always existed those
who, through hard work and
sacrifice, have been able to
bring the Club’s complete
membership together in
pursuit of a larger common
vision. The Yukon Alpine
Centennial was one of the
most exciting and inspiring
events in the history of the
ACC.
The Yukon Alpine Centennial
I
n 1967, Canadians from coast to coast
celebrated their country’s 100th birthday, and
fittingly, Alpine Club of Canada members
planned their own memorable event. For two
months during the 1967 summer, 250 people,
including the nation’s best climbers, gathered for
the Yukon Alpine Centennial Expedition. Quite
likely the largest mountaineering expedition ever
undertaken, it resulted in 26 first ascents.
An appropriate location for the extravaganza
was selected in the Centennial Range, a cluster
of unclimbed peaks above 3050 metres wedged
between the St. Elias Mountain’s Chitina and
Walsh Glaciers. The plan boasted three impressive
components. First, since 1967 also marked the
centenary of the purchase of Alaska, a joint
Canadian-American team would attempt the
unclimbed south summit of 4789 metre Mount
Vancouver, also called
But more important than the achievement was
Good Neighbour
the manner of its doing – the spirit of the enterprise
Peak, which straddles
which enabled so many unknown peaks to be climbed
the Alaska-Canada
and, at the same time, so much enjoyment to be had by
border. Second, 13 fourso many.
person teams would
attempt first ascents
—Lord John Hunt
of Centennial Range
Foreword, Expedition Yukon
peaks from three base
camps on T-Bone, Prairie and Fundy Glaciers
– the peaks named for the ten provinces and two
territories, with the highest christened Centennial
Peak. Mount Saskatchewan’s team would be all
women.
And third, the Club’s annual General
Mountaineering Camp would host 100 climbers
from around the world. Coordinating the
Base camp of the joint
celebration, ACC Vice President David Fisher was
Canadian-Alaskan
assisted by Don Lyon, Phil Dowling, Eric Brooks,
Expedition party that
Bob Hind, Hans Gmoser, Frank Smith, Vera
climbed Good Neighbour
Peak, (upper left) during
Norman, Joan Greenwood and Cam Ledingham,
Canada and Alaska’s
with Bill Harrison as outfitter. The YACE
Centennial in 1967
organizers
received $77,000 through grants from
PHOTO BY GLEN BOLES
the Federal Centennial Commission,
the Department of Health and Welfare
and the Yukon government.
With the only available maps
showing 152 metre contours, teams
had to make reconnaissance climbs to
determine feasible routes, then conduct
second reconnaissance climbs to find
routes to the summits, after which they
could plan and execute an attempt.
All of this had to be done within two
week periods of erratic mountain
weather. As an additional challenge,
the Centennial Range received two
and half times its normal precipitation
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
in July 1967.
Nevertheless, on June 25 all eight Good
Neighbour Peak Expedition members, including
Canadians Monty Alford, Glen Boles, Dr. Alan
Bruce-Robertson and Leslie McDonald reached
the south summit of Mount Vancouver via a first
ascent of the southeast buttress. Phase one was a
success.
Through the following weeks, climbers endured
stormy weather and uncomfortable bivouacs,
negotiating fog, cloud and rock ridges not visible
from aerial photos. From T-Bone Camp, the
Mount Baffin team endured 500 metres of the
worst scree they’d ever encountered, avalanches,
rock that disintegrated without being touched,
cornices that threatened to collapse and snow
bridges that did. On Mount Prince Edward Island,
climbers were forced to move au cheval along a
narrow ridge. The Mount Saskatchewan women’s
team spent 32 hours out, 22 of them on the descent.
Climbing for 27 hours, Fips Broda pursued an
unknown, difficult and exposed route on Centennial
Peak.
Phase three succeeded brilliantly. Participants
boarded a bus from the Kluane Lake staging area
then rode by four-wheel drive truck to board a
helicopter that dropped them at the glacier’s snout.
From there they walked seven kilometres to camp,
planted in a moist meadow of grassy hummocks
beneath 5073 m Mount Steele and jumbled Steele
Glacier. Guests included Bob Hind, Sterling
Hendricks, ACC President Roger Neave, Fritz
Wiessner and Lord and Lady Hunt, with guides
Hans Gmoser, Hans Schwarz and Peter Fuhrmann
leading jubilant climbers. Participants witnessed
a once in a lifetime surge of the Steele Glacier,
which created a mass of teetering ice pinnacles.
Fortunately, the only serious injury occurred when
Rollie Reader fell and broke both legs. While two
teammates stayed with him, three spent three days
climbing Mount Steele’s west ridge to a high camp
to summon a helicopter rescue.
After several years of organizing, 33 peaks were
climbed, 27 of which were first ascents, with a
dozen first ascent peaks named for deceased ACC
presidents. The biggest peaks, Mounts Walsh, Steele
and Wood were all climbed, some several times.
The massive mountain celebration generated books,
films, maps and articles. In 1968, Thomas Nelson &
Sons published Expedition Yukon, edited by Marni
Fisher, which has since become a rare and sought
after classic of Canadian mountaineering history.
Not since its first camp in 1906 had the ACC so
spectacularly celebrated its talent for exceptional
organization, wholehearted commitment and
unabashed national pride.
Over a period of a hundred
years, the Alpine Club of
Canada has made many
friends abroad. In 2000, the
Club celebrated the history
and heritage it shares with
the Japanese Alpine Club
with a special international
commemoration of the first
ascent of Mount Alberta
which was made by a team
of Japanese climbers in 1925.
Neither club will forget the
generosity or the kindness of
the other.
Mount Alberta
T
here are few mountains in North America
that are surrounded by as many legends as
Mount Alberta. Its remoteness, its difficulty
of access, the bleak and forbidding character of its
fabled peak and the remarkable stories of its first
and subsequent ascents have entered history as
legends that celebrate mountaineering courage and
the shared heritage of nations.
On July 21, 1925, Japanese climber Yuko Maki
and his exhausted party stood triumphantly on the
summit of Mount Alberta. On their descent they
plunged an ice axe into the broken rock below the
peak to commemorate their first ascent. That ice
axe assumed mythical status in Jasper where locals
came to believe it had been made of pure silver
and had been presented to the Japanese party by
the Emperor himself. Less well known were the
events that followed. Intrigued by the rumour
that the ice axe was made of solid silver, American
climbers Fred Ayers and John Oberlin made the
second ascent of Mount Alberta in 1948. They
wrenched from the summit ice the head and upper
shaft of a very ordinary ice axe and presented it to
the American Alpine Club in New York. Nearly
50 years later, Canadian Greg Horne negotiated
its return to Jasper and its permanent exhibition at
the Jasper-Yellowhead
As I said goodbye to my Japanese friends, I felt a
Museum. Horne’s
sense of kinship, happiness and sadness at the same
success in repatriating
time. Would I ever see these wonderful people again?
the famous ice axe
I had been blessed by their friendship over the past
was the inspiration
week. We would be friends for life.
for a 75th anniversary
commemoration of the
—Glen Boles
climb.
Mount Alberta Report
In 1994, ACC Vice
President of Publications, Bob Sandford decided
to write the Japanese Alpine Club to see if they
had an interest in pursuing a joint celebration.
More than a year went by without any response.
Then, finally, Kazuhiro Kumasaki who at the time
was a member of the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the Japanese Alpine
Club answered. In the spring of
1997, Kumasaki was able to organize
a meeting of all the members of
the Japanese Alpine Club who had
an interest in Mount Alberta. They
brought all of the artifacts they had
collected relating to the mountain to
a meeting. Among the relics was the
broken base of a wooden ice axe. A
balsa wood copy was made and sent
to Satch Masuda in Canada. A trip to
Jasper was made to see if it might fit
into the top of the original ice axe that
was now on display in the heritage
gallery of the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum. When
it was realized that both parts of the broken axe
from the 1925 expedition still existed, a Canadian
delegation was invited to a special ceremony in
Tokyo. Canadian Airlines International sponsored
the visit. In front of Prime Minister Ryutaro
Hashimoto, Crown Prince Naruhito and an
audience of nearly 800 Japanese mountaineers,
ACC President Mike Mortimer finally restored
the Emperor’s famous ice axe. Even after nearly
50 years, the pieces fit together so perfectly, it was
difficult to pull them apart. The ice axe was restored
once more in July of 1999 in Nagano at a ceremony
marking the centennial of the Nagano High School
Mountaineering Club.
Seventy-five years after the first ascent, the
Alpine Club of Canada, Parks Canada and
Canadian Pacific Hotels partnered with the
Japanese Alpine Club to mount an ambitious
celebration of the climb and to retell the story.
In July of 2000, the town of Jasper turned out to
welcome a joint Japanese-Canadian climbing team
and 75 Japanese trekkers who came to the Rockies
for the event.
The 75th anniversary celebration of the first
ascent of Mount Alberta accomplished all of its
most cherished goals. Though extreme conditions
did not permit ascent of the mountain, the famous
ice axe was restored in Canada by the joint
Japanese-Canadian mountaineering team; a lasting
relationship was established between the Alpine
Club of Canada and the Japanese Alpine Club; and
Canadians all over the country were made aware of
the shared heritage that makes our national parks
so special to the world. The restored ice axe was put
on exhibition at the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum
where it can still be seen today.
Mount Alberta: a peak with a lot of history
PHOTO BY R.W. SANDFORD
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
49
More than anything else,
the Centennial of the Alpine
Club of Canada is a tribute
to a proud tradition of
Canadian volunteerism.
When Canadians offer
their time and support,
they deliver. Though the
Alpine Club of Canada does
have a small core of highly
committed staff, the great
bulk of its activities rely on
the energy and enthusiasm
of volunteers. From the
section activities to the
agenda of the national board,
volunteers are the heart of
the Club.
Volunteering for Club and Country
C
Skiers at the Stanley Mitchell
Hut in 1947
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ESTATE OF
KEN JONES
●
reating a national, volunteer run
organization in a country as physically large
as Canada is no small challenge. Today
the Alpine Club of Canada’s 10,000 members are
sharing ideas and adventures more actively than
ever. With 19 sections comprised of dedicated
mountain enthusiasts ranging from 5.6 rock
climbers to high altitude alpinists, from hikers to
urban boulderers, members willingly and generously
share their skills and their time to help introduce
others to the camaraderie and spirit of discovery
that for a century has been the essence of Canadian
mountaineering.
It is at the section level that the many colours
and textures of the Canadian mountaineering
mosaic come to life. Proudly expressing their
heritage, Manitoba’s St. Boniface and Quebec’s
Outaouais Sections greet visitors to their web pages
with French language introductions. It’s at the
section level that ACC members are visible and
active within their communities as repositories of
local route information, and as hosts of potluck
dinners, slide shows, climbing gym nights and
photo competitions, as well as organized mountain
outings. Also, it’s at the section level that volunteer
trip leaders are nurtured and trained, sharing their
skills and experience with continuing generations of
ACC members.
Formed in 1907, the Winnipeg Section was
the Club’s first regional chapter, and like the Club’s
other early sections, Winnipeg Section members
actively and enthusiastically participated in the
exploration of western Canadian mountains,
and in the creation and improvement of the
backcountry huts. The tradition continues. In 1990,
the recently renamed Manitoba Section raised the
profile of the Club and the activity of climbing
by creating Winnipeg’s first indoor climbing wall.
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
By establishing Winnipeg as a regular stop for the
Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, the
Section has introduced mountaineering to 1000
people annually since 1992.
Also formed in 1907, the Calgary Section
is currently the Club’s largest, with over 750
members. Although always active in construction
and maintenance of ACC backcountry facilities,
Calgary Section members made particularly
significant contributions through the 1960s, 70s
and 80s toward the creation of the Wapta Icefield
huts. With varied trip schedules offering rock and
ice climbing weekends to weeklong ski traverses,
section members monitor regional access issues
in the Ghost River, mountain national parks and
Kananaskis Country.
Based amidst the concrete of the country’s
largest city, Toronto Section members continue to
be among the Club’s most involved. The Section
was created by Arthur Coleman in 1907, after he
chaired the 1906 Winnipeg meetings and was
elected national Vice President. After dissolving in
1933, the Section reformed in 1957, after the first
ascent of the Bon Echo cliffs at Mazinaw Lake.
Since then the Section has provided hut and boat
custodians to facilitate climbing in the area, while
also organizing section camps in the mountains of
western Canada.
On the west coast, the Vancouver Island Section
was founded in 1912 by A.O. Wheeler, who along
with 16 Section members played an integral role
in establishing Strathcona Park. After Wheeler led
an expedition to explore and report on the park’s
alpine attractions for the provincial government,
the park was made much larger than originally
planned. After a lull during World War II, the
Section enjoyed a slow recovery through the 1950s
and 60s and has been growing steadily ever since.
Continuing its legacy of preserving environmentally
valuable places, Vancouver Island Section members
are working toward making Mount Arrowsmith a
protected park.
Across the Strait of Georgia, the Vancouver
Section was formed in 1918. In the manner of their
Vancouver Island Section counterparts, Vancouver
Section members undertook pioneering exploratory
trips into the remote corners of the Coast
Mountains. By far the most prolific and dedicated
were Phyl and Don Munday who spent countless
days walking, canoeing and climbing in the coast
wilderness in search of Mount Waddington.
Formed in 1921, Edmonton Section members
showed great enthusiasm even in their earliest days.
While numbering fewer than 20 they raised funds
to build Jasper National Park’s Memorial – now
Wates-Gibson Hut. Current Edmonton Section
members continue to lovingly
maintain the stately log building,
while also maintaining the invaluable
Alpine Accidents in Canada website.
In truly Canadian style, the
ACC’s Saskatchewan Section thrives
despite being based among flat
Peter Taylor and Joe Baker
wheat fields. Keen organizers of expeditions to
erect the first wall of the Jim
Canadian and international high altitude peaks,
Haberl Hut in 2005
Saskatchewan Section members also organize
PHOTO BY SUE OAKEY-BAKER
events close to home. Each year members organize
a popular annual “Thrasher’s” weekend, introducing
beginners to rock and ice climbing outside of the
gym. Through two fundraising events – the Banff
Mountain Film Festival World Tour and the Prairie
Pitch Adventure Race, the Section raises money
for mountaineering related organizations such as
the Canadian Avalanche Association and Canadian
Parks and Wilderness Society.
Further east, the Montreal Section welcomes
both English and French speaking members who
organize regular outings not only in their own
province, but also in nearby New York, Vermont
and New Hampshire mountains. Formed in 1943
as an essentially English speaking organization, the
Montreal Section has flourished and evolved. It
has been introducing French-speaking Quebecers
to alpine activities since the 1950s and is a truly
bilingual group. Nearby, members of the Ottawa
Section – formed in 1949 – run local trips to
the Eardley Escarpment in the Gatineau
1907 – Winnipeg Section, renamed
Mountains, where they are also committed
Manitoba Section circa 1990
access advocates.
1907 – Calgary Section
First formed in 1972 as the Banff Section,
1907 – Toronto Section
the Rocky Mountain Section was renamed
1912 – Vancouver Island Section
in 1989. Led by Bernie Schiesser and Eric
1918 – Vancouver Section
Lomas who built several huts in their
1921 – Edmonton Section
backyards during the 1980s and 90s, this
1933 – Toronto Section folds
section has always been committed builders
1921 – Saskatchewan Section
and stewards of ACC backcountry facilities.
1943 – Montreal Section
Occasionally, one section’s initiative
1946 – Saskatchewan Section folds
benefits many others over time, as is the case
1949 – Ottawa Section
with the Banff Mountain Film Festival. In
1957 – Toronto Section reforms
the mid 1970s, Section members gathered
1972 – Banff Section formed, renamed
in a Banff basement where Chic Scott
Rocky Mountain Section in 1989
suggested creating a mountain film festival
1983 – Thunder Bay Section
in the style of Italy’s Trento festival. It has
1992 – Jasper/Hinton Section
since morphed into the world-class event
1993 – Central Alberta Section
it is today. From Saskatoon to Winnipeg
1994 – Saskatchewan Section reforms
to Thunder Bay, ACC members sponsor
1994 – St. Boniface Section
organized screenings of the festival’s best
1995 – Prince George Section
films, raising resources for local Club
1997 – Whistler Section
initiatives.
1997 – Okanagan Section
In the last two decades of the 20th
2002 – Outaouais Section
century, the Club welcomed eight more
2005 – Competition Climbing Section
regional sections – including Thunder Bay,
Jasper/Hinton, Central Alberta, St. Boniface, Prince
George, Whistler, Okanagan and Outaouais.
Through the past quarter century, across the
country section members continually coordinate
events and projects, ranging from new route
development and anchor upgrading to the
publication of guidebooks and participation in
initiatives such as Project Peregrine. In 2000,
Jasper Section member Greg Horne inspired one
of the Club’s finest accomplishments, the joint
ACC/Japanese Alpine Club celebration of the 75th
anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Alberta.
Although the Club’s smallest section with
31 members, Central Alberta contributes to hut
maintenance and trail building efforts in the
Rockies, and attracts new members through its
winter ice climbing program. Like the Okanagan
Section, the Central Alberta Section serves as
a hub for residents of numerous small, remote
communities in its region. Serving its region, in
2005, B.C.’s Prince George Section welcomed the
Smithers Chapter. Further west, Whistler Section
members pitched in thousands of volunteer hours
making the Wendy Thompson Hut in the Cayoosh
Range’s Marriott Basin a reality – obtaining
permits, drawing plans, building and transporting
the hut and rebuilding it in its alpine location.
Formed in 1993, St. Boniface became the Club’s
first French speaking section. It was followed by
Outaouais in 2002. While St. Boniface has become
well known throughout North America for its
Festiglace ice climbing festival and competition and
all winter ice tower, Outaouais Section members
are passionately involved in regional access issues.
Joining forces with other groups – including
the ACC Ottawa Section – they’ve formed the
Gatineau Park Climber’s Coalition in response to
the 2004 National Capital Commission’s 10-year
master plan for Gatineau Park, which proposed
prohibiting climbing in the park. Working out an
agreement with the NCC to preserve access to
key sites, the group also created a climbers’ code of
ethics to help respect and conserve the endangered
species.
From telemark clinics to backcountry
orienteering, watercolour painting workshops
to writing contests, from adventure races to ice
climbing festivals, members across the country
embrace and promote the Club’s founding
objectives – the encouragement and practice
of mountaineering and mountain crafts, the
education of Canadians in appreciation of their
mountaineering heritage, the exploration of alpine
and glacial regions and the preservation of their
natural beauties. And it’s all accomplished by
volunteers.
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Centennial Gazette
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2006
51
Since its inception in 1990,
the Mountain Guides’ Ball
has become the premiere
social event in the mountain
calendar. It is the one party in
the year at which the entire
Canadian mountaineering
community gathers. Thanks
to the unflagging efforts
of volunteer organizers, it
is now an established ACC
tradition.
The Mountain Guides’ Ball
N
o organization as esteemed as the Alpine
Club of Canada would be complete
without a signature annual party. Every
autumn since 1990, the Mountain Guides’ Ball has
offered Alpine Club of Canada members and their
friends an opportunity to gather in a social setting
with other members of the Canadian mountain
community – including mountain guides, Parks
Canada representatives, local business owners and
Club supporters.
Dressed in formal evening attire – or kilts and
lederhosen – guests sip cocktails, savour a multicourse dinner, dance to a live band and bid on
auction items, including fine works of mountain
art, backcountry lodge weeks and outdoor gear. The
proceeds benefit various Club related initiatives and
programs.
Like so many great traditions, the Guides’
Ball evolved from a single event. In celebration of
its 25th anniversary in 1988, the Association of
Canadian Mountain Guides staged a lavish party at
the Banff Springs Hotel, honouring Hans Gmoser
as special guest. The evening was so successful many
felt it should become an annual event. To ensure
solid organization and longevity, Gmoser suggested
inviting the Alpine Club of Canada to become
involved.
As a senior Vice President of Canadian Pacific
Hotels and General Manager of the Banff Springs
Hotel, Ivor Petrak had a deep appreciation for CP’s
role in establishing the Swiss guiding tradition
in the mountains of western Canada. He also
appreciated the ACC’s role through the 20th
century in introducing many Canadians to the joys
and challenges of mountaineering and high alpine
wonders.
Seizing the opportunity to
recognize and celebrate the Canadian
Mountain Guides’ Ball Patrons
mountaineering tradition, the
ACC’s Peter Fuhrmann, along with
1990 – Bruno Engler
Ken Hewitt and Mike Mortimer
1991 – Andy Russell
collaborated with Petrak to create the
1992 – Bill Putnam
Mountain Guides’ Ball. The Chateau
1993 – Glen Boles
Lake Louise was selected as venue, in
1994 – Peter Fuhrmann
recognition of its role as the base from
1995 – Bob Hind
which professional guides worked
1996 – UIAGM
for half a century. With legendary
1997 – David Fisher
mountain guide, photographer,
1998 – Louise and Richard Guy
filmmaker and storyteller extraordinaire
1999 – Sydney Feuz
Bruno Engler as patron, the 1990
2000 – Don Forest
Mountain Guides’ Ball was a great
2001 – Hans Schwarz
success.
2002 – Canadian Mountain Rescue Services
More than a celebration however,
2003 – ACMG founding members
Guides’ Ball Committee members
2004 – Sharon Wood
decided the event provided an
2005 – Don Vockeroth
outstanding opportunity to raise
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
funds to help further the Club’s objectives, so
they incorporated a live auction into the evening.
Proceeds from the 1990 event went toward the
Canadian Alpine Centre.
Over the past 16 years, the Guides’ Ball has
evolved and changed. The original live auction
became a silent one – allowing guests to socialize
more while surveying the items and recording
their bids. Over the years, attendees have been
introduced to an interesting and talented variety
of mountain artists who donated their works.
Continuing a format initiated with an ACC
Publications/Mountain Culture Committee
booklet on esteemed member Bob Hind in 1996,
in 2000 the committee published a biography of
Don Forest, officially launching the Summit Series
of mountain biographies, which annually recognize
individual and group contributions that strengthen
the appreciation of Canada’s mountain heritage.
Facing several challenges, including increasing
ticket prices, in 2005 the Mountain Guides’ Ball
moved to the Banff Park Lodge. On average, the
evening attracts 300 guests, most from the Bow
Valley between Golden B.C. and Calgary, with
others from as far away as Vancouver, Montreal,
Toronto and even the U.S., including ACC board
members attending the annual fall meetings. The
new Banff venue alleviated the need for local guests
to add the cost of overnight accommodations in
Lake Louise. For those who would stay overnight,
Banff offered a wider range of accommodation
options. As well, since the gala has always been
open to all – not just Club members – the Banff
venue made the Ball more accessible to the general
public, providing an excellent opportunity for
everyone to learn more about the ACC.
The Centennial also contributed to the
move. With the ACC hosting the annual UIAA
(International Mountaineering and Climbing
Federation) meetings, for which delegates and
their spouses would travel from around the world,
Banff provided a wider range of activities for family
members.
The 2005 Ball at the BPL provided an excellent
dry run for the 2006 gala. Guests enjoyed a fine
meal, danced to an excellent band and the silent
auction raised $16,000. Many fine traditions were
continued, as several recently graduated ACMG
full guides were presented their pins, Glen Boles
was named ACC Honorary President, and the
Club toasted its ongoing role in the evolution of
Canada’s unique mountain culture.
Because of the remarkable
and complete nature of the
early records, the focus of
the Alpine Club of Canada’s
legend has largely been
on the mountaineering
history that took place
at and around the time
of the Club’s founding. A
century later, however, we
see that each era in the
Club’s history represents a
formative contribution to
mountaineering culture in
Canada. The ACC’s Mountain
Culture Committee is
committed to ensuring
that the important figures
and events associated with
mountaineering in our time
are not forgotten.
Giving Meaning and Value to History
W
hile producing a book length annual
journal of record and a regular
newsletter in the form of the Gazette
would, for most alpine organizations, suffice to
meet all publications objectives, it is not enough for
the Alpine Club of Canada. From its inception, the
ACC began publishing Annual General Meeting
reports, Canadian Alpine Journal off-prints and
song sheets. Beginning in 1920, it also published, in
association with the American Alpine Club, a series
of classic mountaineering guides that, within the
climbing community, achieved almost biblical status
by virtue of the information they contained and
the desires that information inspired. The tradition
of joint-publication of climbing, hut and access
guides has continued to this day but has expanded
to include climbing areas in almost every part of
the country.
The Mountain Culture Committee has also
been active in the preservation of the Club’s history
through support for books that celebrate Canada’s
mountaineering heritage. A new and highly active
era of ACC publication
A developing culture often passes through a
began with the
number of stages on its way to maturation. People
appearance of Canadian
share unique experiences that transform them. These
Summits in 1994.
experiences are told to others through story. When
Edited by Geoff Powter
recorded, stories become history; history becomes
and Bob Sandford, this
legend and legend becomes tradition. To keep the
very well received book
original inspiration alive through time, tradition
chronicled the most
must be experienced and then transcended by each
influential articles to
successive generation. By becoming the embodiment
appear in the Canadian
of this process over the last century, I believe the
Alpine Journal over
ACC has been the central vehicle for development of
the first 77 volumes
mountain culture in Canada.
of publication. This
book was followed
—R.W. Sandford
by a series of elegant
Vice President, Mountain Culture
replica reprints of
mountaineering classics created in partnership
with Aquila Books in Calgary. This series included
popularly priced reprints of works such as Climbs
and Explorations in the Canadian Rockies by
Norman Collie and Hugh Stutfield, Among the
Selkirk Glaciers by William Spotswood Green
and The Canadian Rockies: New and Old Trails by
A.P. Coleman. The Mountain Culture Committee
also published a landmark biography of mountain
photographer and guide Bruno Engler in 1996
and an account of 75th anniversary celebration of
the first ascent of Mount Alberta, in association
with the Japanese Alpine Club of Canada in 2000.
The Mountain Culture Committee went on to
publish the first ever account of the remarkable
Rocky Mountain climbs and explorations of
Alfred Ostheimer in 2002. In addition, the
Committee also published tributes to prominent
mountaineering figures honoured at the annual
Mountain Guides’ Ball such as Don Forest, the
Grizzly Group, Hans Schwarz, Sharon Wood and
Don Vockeroth. The Mountain Culture Committee
has also published monographs on historical
themes such as the discovery of the Columbia
Icefield, the contribution of Swiss mountain
guides to the development of a unique Canadian
alpine tradition, the creation of the Association of
Canadian Mountain Guides and the birth of Parks
Canada’s elite mountain rescue function.
As well, the Mountain Culture Committee
has worked hard to honour the Alpine Club of
Canada’s art and culture mandate. Building on
an artistic tradition within the Club established
by early artists of the reputation of Fred Brigden
and others beginning in the late 1930s, the Alpine
Club of Canada has published two contemporary
books related to art and the Canadian alpine.
Published with the support of the estate of longtime member Nel Whellams, Donna Jo Massie’s A
Rocky Mountain Sketchbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to
Watercolour Painting in the Mountain Landscape has
now achieved the status of a national bestseller in
Canada. In 2003 with the support of Lois Currie,
the Alpine Club of Canada also published Dr. Jane
Gooch’s stunningly beautiful Artists of the Rockies
on art and inspiration at Lake O’Hara.
In addition to publishing materials, the ACC
has a library collection of approximately 3,500
Canadian and international titles, as well as many
archival documents containing information on
the history of the Club. The Club’s Library and
Archives are currently housed in the Whyte
Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff.
The Alpine Club of Canada’s Centennial has
presented the Mountain Culture Committee an
opportunity to expand its partnership possibilities
with the sections and with other areas of Club such
as Facilities and Activities. It will also allow the
Committee to return to the original Club mandate
relating to understanding of science as it relates to
mountain places. It is the aim of this Committee
to honour the Club’s history and culture and to use
the Centennial to build a strong foundation for the
Mountain Culture Committee that will hopefully
last well into the next century.
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
53
It was never the central
purpose of the Alpine Club
of Canada to represent the
pinnacle of mountaineering
achievement, though many
of its members over the last
century certainly did. The
Club’s principal goal was to
popularize mountaineering
by establishing a reliable
vehicle for Canadians to learn
to climb safely and skillfully
and to lead others toward
self-fulfillment through
accomplishment. The main
vehicle for the creation
of a unique and enduring
mountain culture in Canada
was the Club’s leadership
and training development
program.
Lorraine Harrison and
Susanna Oreskovic
decending Mount Jupiter,
Marmot Women's Camp in
2002
PHOTO BY MARG SAUL
Leadership Training and Development
F
rom its day of inception, the Alpine Club of
Canada sought among its main purposes to
open the minds and hearts of Canadians to
the mountains of their very own country through
the mountaineering experience.
As an organization dedicated to providing
that experience to all interested Canadians, and
not just those who were already competent in
the art of alpine exploration, glacier travel and
technical climbing, the Club made sure to invite
two professional mountain guides to its inaugural
1906 camp. Under the guidance of Eduoard and
Gottfried Feuz, camp organizers included in the
week’s program the very first ACC mountaineering
school, thus beginning a tradition in mountain craft
that is now a century old.
With over 100 people attending the camp and
so many eager to climb their first real mountains,
there were not enough guides. To make up for
this, the Club arranged for experienced amateurs
to render “good service to climbing and exploring
parties.”
As such, the Club established itself as an
inclusive organization where members could learn
by doing under the care and attention of those
eager to share their skills and experience. Through
the following decades, the tradition continued,
as many who climbed their first mountains and
crossed their first glaciers under the leadership of
enthusiastic ACC volunteer leaders graduated to
lead their own rope parties. In recognition of the
invaluable contributions made by volunteer trip
leaders – both at their local section and national
camp levels, in 1933 the Club created the Silver
Rope for Leadership Award. Since then the award
has been presented annually to Club members who
“have demonstrated technical skills and leadership
abilities of a high caliber in mountaineering or ski
mountaineering over a number of years.”
During the 1980s, in the interest of attracting
and encouraging qualified, experienced trip
leaders, the Club organized a series of leadership
conferences. The first, titled The Mountain
Leadership Conference, took place at the Banff
Centre in May 1982. Chaired by John Tewnion,
it was hosted by the Alberta Mountain Council
– an autonomous group formed under the auspices
of the ACC to promote all aspects of safety and
awareness in mountain oriented recreation.
With 120 people taking advantage of the
valuable opportunity, delegates participated in small
seminars designed to follow the conference theme:
“If you are leading a group in the mountains,
have you fully considered all the implications
of the responsibilities involved?” Speakers
included guides, educators, alpine specialists and
emergency physicians. Topics discussed included
the psychological aspects of accident prevention,
organization and leadership in a group, mountain
weather, outdoor equipment and basic search
procedures.
Hailed a success, the conference was followed
by a second titled Winter Mountain Leadership
in December 1985. Over two days 200 delegates
gathered at the Chateau Lake Louise to discuss
topics including snow stability evaluation,
avalanche hazard forecasting techniques, planning
for extended ski tours, emergency situation
management, snow shelters and ice climbing
hazards.
Sufficiently encouraged, the organizers
coordinated a third Mountain Leadership
Conference in 1989. The event took place at the
Kananaskis Lodge over two days and attracted
250 delegates. Furthering the ongoing theme of
accepting the implications of the responsibilities
involved in volunteer trip leading situations, session
topics included helicopter safety and flight rescue
systems, expedition goal setting, group dynamics
from a leadership perspective and efficient and
effective route finding.
The purpose of the conferences was to offer
those interested in leading trips – plus many
already doing so – an opportunity to seriously
consider a myriad of issues and factors other than
straightforward technical mountain skills. All three
conferences produced publications designed to
serve as valuable resources for backcountry users
by providing knowledge that would enhance safety
and enjoyment in the mountains.
In 1990, those publications culminated in The
Mountaineering Course Syllabus, prepared by Brian
Spear for the ACC Education Committee. It
aimed at establishing a system of courses to provide
students with the skills required to develop as
mountaineers and leaders. With the understanding
that mountaineering is the art of traveling safely
in dangerous places employing learned skills,
those behind the syllabus also understood that
mountaineering is a dynamic field that can’t be
regimented, and that safe and efficient leaders must
develop judgment and experience to be used within
a key framework.
The syllabus grew out of an expressed need to
standardize mountaineering courses within the
province of Alberta. The ACC’s Alberta Sections
collaborated with the ACMG, University of
Calgary, Mount Royal College and several other
outdoor agencies, aiming to ultimately establish
common practices for mountaineering training
courses run by the ACC and through other
organizations throughout Canada.
For the Alpine Club of Canada will, more
than any national sport in the Dominion, weld
together the provinces in the bonds of brotherhood;
and furnish training in the more Spartan virtues
of times of peace. It will not be many years before it
will have entrenched itself deep in every province
between the two oceans, when its membership will
be in the thousands, and each and every Canadian
mountaineer make the Club’s motto his own – “sic
itur ad astra.”
Before the century
was out, the stage
was set for the birth
of formalized, annual
leadership courses. In
1997, the Club’s Board
of Directors established
—Elizabeth Parker
the Leadership
Development Fund
to subsidize training
programs for volunteer
leaders. In addition to being generously supported
by The North Face gear manufacturer, a portion of
each national camp fee is placed in the fund.
Benefiting from the efforts of Mike Mortimer,
The North Face – ACC Leadership Courses
were created that year. The week-long courses
are designed to provide advanced training for
the Club’s active section trip leaders, General
Mountaineering Camp amateur rope leaders and
national camp managers. A ratio of ten students
per three instructors provides an intense, focused
– yet fun – learning environment. In December
2000 ACMG guide Cyril Shokoples created a
formal curriculum with course objectives and goals.
In 2001 he created the objectives for the summer
course.
Since 1997, over 100 active amateur trip leaders
have
participated in the program. Running from
Below: The North Face
Golden Alpine Holidays’ lodges in winter, and in
Leadership training course
participants Zac Robinson
conjunction with the GMC in the summer, The
and Diane Schon short rope
North Face courses offer experienced amateur
on the west ridge of Waikibi
leaders a valuable opportunity to learn skills and
Peak (2,625 m)
techniques from experienced professional guides,
Right: Guide Peter Amann
demonstrates analysis
which they in turn share with Club members on
techniques in one of many
section trips.
snow pits dug during the
week
PHOTOS BY
RICK HUDSON
Following the success of The North Face course,
Mike Mortimer and Bruce Keith negotiated
another leadership course – specifically for
women. Despite great increases in female interest
and participation in mountain activities, women
continue to be in the minority most of the time
in the climbing environment. While some feel
perfectly comfortable learning from male partners
who by nature tend to be more aggressive,
physically stronger and more tolerant of physical
risk, others may not feel sufficiently at ease to take
their turn in the lead often enough to develop
their leadership skills. A lack of female leaders at
both the section and national levels confirmed the
challenges of nurturing female trip leaders.
Working with Tom Fritz, a long term ACC
supporter and marketing Vice President for
outdoor clothing manufacturer Marmot, Mortimer
and Keith secured sponsorship to create the ACC
Marmot Women’s Camps. That done, the two
men retreated, and an all-women ACC volunteer
committee was formed to oversee the program.
Edmonton Section member Julia Keenliside served
as its first Chair, and working with Tami Knight,
Willa Harasym and Leslie DeMarsh the program
was designed and candidates were selected for the
first Marmot course in 2000.
The aim of the course was to give women a
chance to learn and use leadership skills in an allfemale setting. The course was targeted at women
who had the basic skills and were ready to learn to
lead in either the summer or winter setting.
Moving steadily forward and upward,
in September 2005 members of the Club’s
National Leadership Committee held a four-day
experimental Central Canada Rock Leadership
Course in Val David Quebec, following
curriculum models prepared by Shokoples.
Committee members hope to proceed with a
course that’s even better than the successful
trial.
With formally organized and professionally
executed leadership courses, the Club continues
to secure its foundation from the bottom up.
Through section level leadership courses as
well as the formal North Face and Marmot
programs, the ACC actively fulfills its stated
Objects: “the encouragement and practice of
mountaineering and mountain crafts and the
promotion of these skills through participation
in the activities of the Club.”
These courses also help promote the work
of the Club: “the development of reliable
professional and amateur guides to assist the
Club in carrying out its training, climbing and
ski mountaineering programs.”
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
55
With all the major peaks
climbed by at least
their simplest routes,
mountaineering took
a different turn. The
exhilaration of achievement
moved indoors onto climbing
walls, and outdoors onto
icefalls. Competitive climbing
burst onto the international
scene bringing in its train
thousands of new adventure
enthusiasts with new ways
of thinking about upward
mobility. Dozens of new
organizations have been
created to advance this
growing interest. The Alpine
Club of Canada embraces and
actively supports these new
directions in climbing.
Reaching New Heights: Indoors and Out
O
Will Gadd competes at an
Ice Climbing World Cup
competition at Kirov, Russia;
circa 2000
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WILL GADD
COLLECTION
●
ver the course of the century, climbing has
evolved to encompass an extraordinary
range of individual disciplines. Climbers
no longer set out solely in the hopes of reaching a
summit – in sport climbing the ‘summit’ is likely
to be a set of metal chains permanently attached
to bolts drilled into a vertical cliff about 30 metres
above the ground. Ice climbers scale frozen
waterfalls as self-contained objectives. Mixed
climbers combine the technical skills of advanced
ice climbing with the gymnastics of technically
challenging indoor wall or outdoor sport climbing.
Modern sport, ice and mixed climbing are not so
much about the alpine experience as they are about
the simple joy of exploring the relationship between
thoughtful body movement and climbing medium.
Like virtually all recreational activities,
mountaineering benefited greatly from advances
in technology throughout the 20th century. As
mountaineers attempted increasingly challenging
peaks, belay techniques evolved, and harnesses were
constructed of stronger webbing. Shortly before
World War II, the invention of sturdy rubber
Vibram soles gave outdoor footwear a step up. Also
in the 1940s, the first solid, hard pitons, forged from
the axle of a Model-A Ford, were used to tackle the
high steep faces in Yosemite National Park.
Early in the 1960s, French climbers introduced
climbing footwear with smooth rubber soles, and
in 1983 the Spanish brought forward a sticky
rubber-soled rock climbing shoe. It was also in
the 1960s that temporary, removable yet
safe camming devices that didn’t scar the
rock were developed. Hemp ropes were
replaced by strong, dynamic synthetic
fibres capable of holding long falls of
weights far in excess of a human body. By
the early 1970s, full body harnesses were
replaced by waist harnesses, allowing for
greater range of movement.
In November 1952, Hans Gmoser and
Leo Grillmair, a pair of young climbers
recently arrived from Austria, with Isabel
Spreat made a first ascent of an obvious
line of cracks and corners on the Rockies’
landmark Mount Yamnuska. Their route,
Grillmair’s Chimneys, and several others
in the subsequent years, launched a whole
new level of technical rock climbing in
Canada, and Canadians joined in the
fray. In 1961, coast climber Jim Baldwin
and American Ed Cooper set a milestone
in Canadian mountaineering with their
first ascent of the Squamish Chief ’s
Grand Wall. Throughout the 1960s, bold
Canadian rock climbers practised their
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
craft on increasingly challenging routes across
the country, some of which were among the most
difficult climbs in North America at the time.
The 1970s saw the birth of waterfall ice
climbing – an arena in which Canadians found
their niche, mounting an international presence that
endures to this day. With the birth of ice climbing,
improvements in ice axes and crampons allowed for
more efficient climbing on steep and bulging ice.
From the 1970s onward, advances in technology
and technique led mountaineers to attempt more
technically challenging routes to summits that had
seen countless ascents by their easiest “standard”
routes. Through the 1980s, Canadians including
John Lauchlan and Barry Blanchard set a new
standard for bold and daring north face climbs
in winter. By the 1990s, experienced ice climbers
began combining gymnastic rock climbing skills
with technical ice climbing skills to develop mixed
climbing as a discipline of its own, with low
profile “fruit boots” fixed with built in crampons
designed to hook into tiny spaces and rock ledges,
and leashless ice axes wielded as extensions of a
climber’s arm. By virtue of a long season and plenty
of suitable chossy rock, Canadians have established
themselves among the world best mixed climbers.
From its earliest days, mountaineering was a
competitive pursuit, with climbers racing to be
the first to claim a summit, usually in the name of
their country. Through the latter two decades of
the century, with all the major peaks climbed many
times over on all continents, it almost seemed logical
that competitive climbing move indoors. Canada’s
first indoor climbing wall was designed by Murray
Toft and built into the structure of Mount Royal
College in 1971. In 1989, universities in Montreal,
Chicoutimi and Edmonton constructed indoor
climbing walls. Outdoors, by the end of the 1980s,
the use of expansion bolts permanently drilled into
rock faces became commonplace – despite ethical
debates that continue to this day. Since then, tens
of thousands of sport climbing routes have been
established on hundreds of cliffs from coast to coast
to coast. Bolted crags opened climbing to a wider
range of people who wanted to enjoy a day or a
few hours on the rock, without the technical and
psychological commitment demanded by climbing
on traditional gear.
With the progression of the relatively safe and
low risk activity of sport climbing through the
1980s and 90s, interest in rock climbing literally
exploded across North America and Europe. In the
1980s the first official difficulty competitions took
place in Europe, with the first indoor event held
in a gymnasium France in 1986. By the late 1980s,
the UIAA recognized the burgeoning competitive
Progress and evolution in anything is invariably
tied up with the idea of competition. Competition
provides comparison and context for most human
activities, and is as important in the mountains as
in a gymnasium. The Alpine Club of Canada is not
only a vehicle for cultural or social appreciation – it’s
an internationally recognized sports federation with
commensurate responsibilities. It has a role to play in
determining the future of climbing in Canada, and
in the future of Canada itself.
Zak McGurk eying the
crux at the Vsion Gym in
Canmore in 2004
PHOTO BY FRASER MCGURK
climbing circuit, and
the first World Cup
competition, with
events in speed and
difficulty took place in
—Dave Dornian
1989. In 1997, a new
Chair, Competition Climbing Section
structure, the ICC
– International Council
for Competition Climbing, was created inside the
UIAA, with a bouldering discipline introduced
the following year. Today, more than 75 countries
participate in climbing competitions.
Competition climbing debuted in Canada at
the Banff Centre’s Eric Harvie Theatre in 1988,
with the first Canadian National Sport Climbing
Championships. Organized by Marc Dube, under
Peter Fuhrmann’s leadership, the ACC supported
the event, thus beginning its commitment to the
evolution of competitive climbing. Canadian Jim
Sandford won, and in 1989 the first Canadian
National Team formed. Later that year, Dube and
Sandford travelled to Russia to represent Canada
at an international competition. Through the 1990s,
Will Gadd was Canada’s leading competitive
climber, reaching the semi finals in World Cup
competition in Kobe Japan in 1991 and 1992. A
decade later, and benefiting from organized training
and coaching, Vancouver’s Sean McColl placed
first in both speed and difficulty events in the 2002
Youth World Championships in Canteleu, France.
A year later, McColl won the 16-17 Boys category
at the Youth Worlds in Bulgaria. In 2005, he won
the USA Climbing Nationals.
Throughout 1990s it became increasingly
evident that indoor competitive climbing had
great appeal for youth – even for those whose
parents had no experience or interest in climbing.
Driven by long-time volunteer and competition
climbing advocate David Dornian, at the 2005
spring Board of Directors meeting, the ACC
welcomed the Competition Escalade Canada
(CEC) as the Club’s first non-geographic section.
As the only sanctioning body for competition
climbing in Canada recognized by the UIAA’s
International Council for Competition Climbing,
CEC membership is required for any athletes
representing Canada at sanctioned international
events. In redefining Competition Escalade Canada
as an ACC section, young climbers interested in
participating in the popular competitive climbing
circuit would now become ACC members in the
process, thereby exposing them to the benefits of
Club membership from an early age and raising the
profile of competition climbing within the Club.
At the start of the 21st century, and by virtue
of the ACC’s membership in the UIAA, the
Club assumed the role of Canada’s national
governing body for another growing competitive
activity – Ski Mountaineering Competition. In
the latter part of the 1990s, the International Ski
Mountaineering Council was established to oversee
the organization of competition calendars, an
international World Cup series and to lobby for
inclusion in the Olympics of the sport that had
been evolving in Europe since the 1980s. The first
official ISMC World Championships were held
in Serre Chevalier, France, in January 2002. On
very short notice, the ACC organized a two man
team consisting of Ptor Spriceneiks and Richard
Haywood to represent Canada, who were grateful
to not finish dead last behind experienced and
über-organized Europeans.
Ski mountaineering competitors race over steep
alpine terrain using ski touring gear, gaining and
losing up to 3000 metres worth of elevation past
a series of checkpoints set along ridges and peaks.
They skin up slopes, scramble up ridges carrying
their skis on their packs and make a few well
deserved turns down other slopes, travelling from
valley floor with a mandatory pack full of gear in
less than three hours. Whistler hosted Canada’s first
ski mountaineering competition in 2003, which
was handily won by Revelstoke’s Greg Hill, who
also won the two subsequent years. With the 2010
Winter Olympic Games set for Vancouver, the
ACC is enthusiastically backing UIAA efforts to
have the new sport included as an Olympic sport.
One hundred years after introducing the sport
of mountaineering to its members, the Alpine Club
of Canada is actively working toward making the
myriad of climbing disciplines more accessible
to ever increasing numbers of Canadians. Club
members help support and organize ice climbing
festivals across the country, in places including
Orient Bay Ontario, Quebec City, Lillooet British
Columbia, St. Boniface Manitoba, and Canmore
and Nordegg Alberta, bringing climbers together
in a casual, festive setting and introducing new
people to the activity. As the sanctioning body
for competitive climbing in Canada, the Club
continues to expand Canadians’ awareness and
appreciation of its mountains and ever evolving
mountain craft.
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
57
The Centennial of the Alpine
Club of Canada is a once in
a lifetime opportunity to
highlight what Canada’s
premiere mountaineering
organization has contributed
to the development of a truly
unique mountain culture in
this country. Judging from
the activities planned both
at the section and national
levels for 2006, it will be
a year the Club will never
forget.
●
A Century of Leadership and Adventure
I
n its first one hundred years, the Alpine Club of
Canada has left an indelible mark on Canadian
mountaineering history, but it has also stood as
a reminder that mountains – wherever they may be
in Canada – are a part of every Canadian’s psyche.
They represent some of what we are proudest to be,
and much of what we aspire to.
In a world that has changed so much in 100
years – from motorized transportation to modern
health care and weapons of mass destruction – the
Alpine Club of Canada and other clubs like it
have changed precious little. The values it holds
dear are remarkably durable and the pursuits it
supports still honour the distance we can cover
on foot – a human scale of time and energy in
the midst of magnificent geology and in spite of
our technological prowess. Though the world may
change, these values do not.
The spirit of the original Alpine Club of Canada
still guides the Club’s activities today. Members
from across the country are planning and preparing
events for the Alpine Club of Canada Centennial
in 2006. We will celebrate with art, science, social
gatherings and – of course – with climbing camps
in some of Canada’s most spectacular mountain
locales. Events are planned for provinces across the
country.
In Winnipeg, on March 25 and 26, the Manitoba
Section will host the Alpine Club of Canada’s
Centennial Board of Directors meetings – halfway
between the west and east, just as the original
meetings were held in 1906. The prairie sections will
kick things off with a Centennial Party, March 24,
at historic Fort Gibraltar. March 25 the party moves
uptown with a Gala at the stunning Fort Garry
Hotel. Of course, the Manitoba Section will also
celebrate its own alpine history with a special book
commemorating notable Manitoban mountaineers
– Elizabeth Parker would be proud.
Next door in Ontario, celebrations will
be doubled thanks to the 50th anniversary of
the Toronto Section in 2006. The Section will
commemorate the Centennial and its own golden
anniversary with a special reunion at the cliffs of
Bon Echo September 1. The section will also release
a revised version of the notable Bon Echo climbing
guidebook.
The Montreal Section is bringing art and
mountains together for a special exhibition
of artwork by section members Sheila Eamer,
Celestine Segers and Ed Potworowski. The
Section is also hoping to designate a “charitable
mountain” in honour of the Club’s Centennial
year. All summiteers would be encouraged to seek
sponsorship from friends and family, to support a
designated charity.
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
The Outaouais Section is holding a Centennial
photo contest of summits: 100 ans de leadership
et d’aventures en montagne. Members have been
challenged to take the official Centennial banner to
a new summit and capture a photo of themselves
with it on the summit. The winning photos will be
compiled into a poster and/or calender.
Not surprisingly, Alberta and British Columbia
will also be abuzz with Centennial events. In
Alberta, many of these will be front-country – as
the National Office prepares to welcome members
from across the country, and colleagues from
around the world.
The International Mountaineering and
Climbing Federation (UIAA) is, today, the
largest mountaineering organization in the
world. It represents 97 member organizations in
68 different countries worldwide and speaks for
the mountaineering community in international
forums, such as the Mountain Partnership. In 2006,
the UIAA General Assembly will take place in
Banff, October 12 to 14. A celebratory Centennial
dinner will be held at the Banff Park Lodge on the
final evening. John Wheeler – grandson of ACC
founder A.O. Wheeler will attend as Patron.
For those who prefer smaller gatherings, the
ACC plans to open two upgraded facilities at
the Canmore Clubhouse on October 13: the Pat
Boswell (Toronto Section) Cabin and the Heritage
Room, which commemorates the history of the
Club. October 11, prior to the UIAA meetings,
a one-day seminar is planned in Banff entitled
Climate Change in the Alpine – a crucial issue in
mountain places. Finally, the much-anticipated
exhibition The Mountaineer and the Artist: Reflection
on a Mountain Place will open in October at the
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff.
Local sections in Alberta are also planning
special events for the Centennial. Camps, photo
and story competitions, a commemorative book,
celebratory dinners, and a community party in
Canmore are all under development.
That said, the Alpine Club of Canada was first
and foremost a mountaineering organization and,
true to form, there are plenty of outdoor adventures
to inspire members in this, its Centennial year. In
British Columbia alone, no fewer than ten camps
and celebrations are planned.
The Marmot Women’s Centennial Ski Camp
and the North Face Centennial Winter Leadership
Course will both take place before the end of
February 2006. Their summer counterparts will
take place July 9 to 14 in the Bugaboos and July
29 to August 5 in the Premier Range, respectively.
The Centennial General Mountaineering Camp
(GMC) will coincide with these events, running
Outaouais members Mélanie
Lalande and Frédéric Lavoie
on the top of Aconcagua
(6992 m) participate in their
section's photo challenge
Centennial event.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE OUTAOUAIS
SECTION
July 1 to August 12 in B.C.’s Premier Range. The
GMC is sponsored by Mountain Hardwear. All of
these events will offer great skills development at
week-long camps.
For the more adventurous, the Yukon Alpine
Centennial Camp will take place in the truly grand
St. Elias Mountains, June 2 to 18.
If you have never attended an Annual General
Meeting of the Alpine Club, 2006 is the year to
do it. In commemoration of the importance of the
region to the history of Canadian mountaineering,
the Centennial AGM will be held July 15 at the
popular Wheeler Hut, at Rogers Pass in British
Columbia’s Glacier National Park. The following
day, the Stanley Mitchell Centennial Camp will
begin, running July 16 to 22 in the Little Yoho
Valley of Yoho National Park.
Several sections are also planning camps
in British Columbia. The Edmonton Section
will be holding two one-week camps in Mount
Assiniboine Provincial Park in August 2006. The
Vancouver Section will host a fly-in, summer
climbing camp at Lake Lovelywater near
Squamish, B.C. from August 5 to 12.
On Vancouver Island, day and weekend trips
are planned for Strathcona Provincial Park. And
July 23 to 30, the Vancouver Island Section is also
planning an ambitious traverse of the Golden
Hinde, Vancouver Island’s tallest peak – no huts,
no trails, eight days. Finally, in honour of the
ACC Centennial the Section is also working to
have the Arrowsmith Massif protected for its
significant avian and mammalian habitats and for
its watersheds, which support five different species
of salmon.
Regardless of how or where you may choose to
celebrate the Alpine Club of Canada Centennial
in 2006, there will be events and activities to enjoy
from all parts of the country.
Canada Post will issue a commemorative stamp
in July 2006. An historic play, Elizabeth Parker
and the Alpine Club of Canada, will be mounted
by Parks Canada’s World Heritage Interpretive
Theatre in March 2006. Several special publications
will also be released. The entire collection of the
Canadian Alpine Journal from 1907 to 2006 will
be made available in digital format – making
trip reports keyword searchable. A Centennial
Canadian Alpine Journal will be published, as well
as Ever Upward: The Canadian Alpine Journal and
the Evolution of the Mountain Spirit in Canada – a
book exploring everything from evolving climbing
techniques to the changing role of parks and
reserves in Canadian mountain culture will follow
in 2007. Yet when all of these events are over, what
happens next? This question is ours to answer.
One hundred years ago the Alpine Club of
Canada captured the imaginations of Canadians by
embodying what inspired the nation at that time.
Mountains and mountaineering – yes – but also
the spirit of adventure, the noble fortification of
mind, body and spirit, the enamoured pursuit of
scientific knowledge, and an admiration for art as
an expression of cultural refinement. At the time, it
was also a sport for the wealthy – drawing people
from around North America with the means to
travel for weeks at a time.
Today, many climbers make tremendous
material sacrifices to carve out the time and
save the money required to enjoy their passion
for mountains. Not to mention, after two world
wars and the birth of popular culture, Canada’s
Edwardian hopes and dreams have been tempered
in the last one hundred years. Our admiration for
personal refinement has been replaced by more
relaxed and informal ways of living. Exercise is no
longer considered a form of moral fortification, and
science is no longer a romantic form of intellectual
exploration but a professional pursuit that is both
politically and economically charged.
Our founders never imagined that great
“wilderness” would ever see roads and civilization
– nor could they possibly have imagined that the
lauded industrial growth of that time would wreak
such havoc that the very climate of the alpine
would be altered. Today we face challenges on a
scale they could not have imagined.
Yet the values of the original Alpine Club of
Canada still resonate today. The Club will continue
to teach mountain-craft, to “deplore wanton
defacement of the wild natural beauty ” of mountain
places, and to bring mountains to the forefront of
the Canadian consciousness. But should the Club
last another hundred years, it will do so by doing
what the original Club did so well – capturing the
imaginations of Canadians and embodying what
we hope to be, as climbers, as individuals, and as a
nation.
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
59
After its first one hundred
years of service to mountain
culture, the Alpine Club
of Canada looks with
enthusiasm to the 21st
century. In his concluding
article, the current President
of the ACC, Cameron Roe,
reflects on the essential
nature of the Club and
its purpose and ponders
the future development
of our uniquely Canadian
appreciation for the alpine.
The Centennial Postscript
T
he Alpine Club of Canada is 100 years
old. This is a notable achievement by any
yardstick and one well deserving of some
contemplation of past events and reflection on what
the future might hold. With much of this issue of
the Gazette dedicated to shedding light on the past
history of the Club, it falls upon me to look at that
past and attempt to describe where the future of the
Club might lead us.
The Alpine Club of Canada has always
seemed to me to be about communities and our
relationship with those communities. The Club was
started by a like minded group of individuals who
got together to foster Canadian mountaineering.
The British Alpine Club and various clubs in the
USA had been active in the mountains of Canada,
and it occurred to the likes of Elizabeth Parker
and Arthur O. Wheeler that Canadians should
perhaps be exploring and climbing the mountains
of Canada instead of leaving it to visitors. From
this beginning, came a series of mountaineering
adventures and trips that saw the exploration of the
western mountains develop and mountaineering
leadership and training grow by leaps and bounds.
A strong mountaineering community was born.
The growth of the Club from the earliest
times to present can be thought of as a series
of relationships with other communities with
whom we share the mountains. Early on it was
relationships with the Canadian Pacific Railway
and access to transportation, hotels and guides
that helped define the Club. With more people
ACC members descend
Mount Robson, 2004
PHOTO BY CAM ROE
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
moving to the western cities like Calgary,
Edmonton and Vancouver, section relationships
became increasingly important. This strong relation
between the Club as a whole and the various local
sections went on to represent the most enduring
and important relationships that the Club has ever
had and probably ever will have. The sections of the
Alpine Club of Canada in turn foster relationships
with individuals by mentoring and providing an
environment in which these individuals can learn
and grow their mountaineering skills. The people
being mentored most often go on to lead and
mentor others in turn.
Other ‘communities’ have had real influence
on the Alpine Club of Canada. The Club’s
relationships with other organizations such as
Parks Canada, Provincial Parks, the burgeoning
Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, and
environmental groups had clear, positive and lasting
influence on the Club. We are, however, faced
with a broad range of challenges that will, in the
next hundred years, demand strong, productive
relationships with these other communities.
We will inevitably be affected in the coming
century by changing demographics, evolving
technology and population growth. Among the
specific challenges we face will be growing issues
related to access and environmental footprints in
ever more crowded mountain regions. Also looming
large in the future are the impacts we have already
begun to witness associated with climate change. To
remain relevant as a club, we will have to be active
in addressing these very real concerns. We will
also have to actively welcome and embrace the rise
of new, sometimes unforeseen, kinds of climbing
interests besides mountaineering.
So what does all this mean? At the core of it all,
the Alpine Club of Canada is a mountaineering
club and to continue for the next hundred years, I
believe that we must never lose sight of this. I think
the future direction of the Alpine Club of Canada
should be simple. Keep climbing. Keep enjoying
your time spent with others in the mountaineering
environment that you love and let others know
that you love it. Work with other individuals
to foster and mentor love and respect for the
Canadian alpine. Do the same for other groups
and organizations that form the larger mountain
community. If we do all of this, I believe that the
Alpine Club of Canada will grow and prosper in
the next century.
—Cam Roe
President of the Alpine Club of Canada
Après avoir promu la passion
des montagnes depuis
un siècle, le Club Alpin
du Canada se tourne avec
enthousiasme vers le 21e
siècle. Dans son article de
clôture, le président actuel du
CAC, Cameron Roe, partage
ses réflexions concernant
la mission du club, son
objectif et notre appréciation
grandissante et tout à fait
canadienne du monde de la
montagne.
Cam Roe leading a group of
ACC members on the east
ridge of Mount Edith Cavell,
2004
PHOTO BY ROGER LAURILLA
Le PostScript Centenaire
L
e Club Alpin du Canada fête ses 100 ans.
C’est en soi une réalisation admirable
qui mérite bien un retour en arrière pour
souligner les succès et un bond en avant pour
cerner ce qui nous attend. Comme ce numéro de
la Gazette consacre une grande partie de ses pages
à l’histoire du club, mes fonctions m’amènent à
jeter un éclairage sur le passé et à tenter de décrire
l’avenir du club.
L’histoire du Club Alpin du Canada, c’est
l’histoire des collectivités et des liens qu’il a tissés
avec elles. Le club a été créé par un groupe de
personnes partageant certaines affinités, qui se sont
regroupées pour donner naissance à l’alpinisme
canadien. Le British Alpine Club et divers clubs
états-uniens parcouraient à l’époque les montagnes
du Canada quand des gens comme Elizabeth
Parker et Arthur O. Wheeler prirent conscience que
les Canadiens pouvaient eux aussi explorer et gravir
les montagnes du pays. Selon eux, cette activité
ne devait pas être réservée aux visiteurs. Leur
réflexion a ouvert la porte à une série d’aventures
et d’excusions alpines qui ont favorisé l’exploration
des montagnes de l’Ouest, ainsi que la création de
cours d’alpinisme et de leadership d’expédition qui
ont connu un franc succès. Une solide communauté
alpine était née.
La croissance du
club, des premiers
balbutiements jusqu’à
maintenant, peut être
perçue comme un
ensemble de liens avec
d’autres collectivités
avec lesquelles
nous partageons les
montagnes. Au début,
ce sont les liens avec le
Canadien Pacifique et
l’accès au transport, à
l’hébergement et aux
guides qui ont façonné
les fondements du
club. Avec la migration
croissante vers les villes
de l’Ouest comme
Calgary, Edmonton
et Vancouver, les liens
entre sections sont
devenus de plus en plus
importants. Le solide
lien qui s’est tissé entre
le club en tant qu’entité
et les diverses sections
locales est devenu avec
le temps la relation la
plus durable et la plus importante de toute l’histoire
du CAC. Aujourd’hui, les sections du Club Alpin
du Canada créent à leur tour des liens avec des
particuliers en leur off rant un encadrement et un
environnement dans lequel ils peuvent apprendre
et améliorer les techniques alpines. Les gens ainsi
formés forment et encadrent à leur tour d’autres
personnes.
D’autres « collectivités » ont aussi exercé une
réelle influence sur le Club Alpin du Canada. Le
club, qui entretient des relations avec Parc Canada,
les parcs provinciaux, l’Association des Guides
de Montagne Canadiens en pleine croissance
et les groupes environnementaux, a clairement
bénéficié de l’influence positive et durable de
ces interlocuteurs. Toutefois, nous faisons face
actuellement à un éventail de défis qui, au cours
du prochain siècle, nécessiteront l’apport de liens
solides et productifs avec ces autres collectivités.
Au fil du siècle en cours, nous seront
inévitablement touchés par les changements
démographiques, les découvertes technologiques et
la croissance de la population. Des problématiques
de plus en plus importantes liées à l’accès et aux
empreintes environnementales laissées dans des
zones montagneuses de plus en plus visitées
figurent parmi les défis que nous auront à relever.
De plus, nous aurons à aff ronter un autre défi de
taille, celui des effets que nous avons commencé à
sentir et qui sont liés aux changements climatiques.
Si nous voulons préserver l’intégrité de notre
club, nous devons nous pencher sérieusement
sur ces questions vitales. Nous devrons aussi
accueillir activement la montée, parfois imprévue,
de nouveaux loisirs qui sont liés à l’ascension de
montagnes.
Que devons nous tirer de cette réflexion? Et
bien à la base, le Club Alpin du Canada est un club
d’activités en montagne. À mon avis, nous devons
adhérer à cet énoncé si nous voulons poursuivre
notre mission. Selon moi, nous devons tenir la
future orientation du CAC à son expression la
plus simple : gravir des montagnes. Continuez
d’apprécier le temps que vous passez avec d’autres
personnes dans les montagnes que vous aimez,
et faites savoir aux autres que vous les aimez.
Travaillez en collaboration avec d’autres individus
pour favoriser et générer un amour et un respect
du milieu alpin canadien. Faites en autant pour
d’autres groupes et organismes qui font partie de
la grande collectivité alpine. Si nous suivons tous
ce chemin, je suis convaincu que le Club Alpin du
Canada grandira et s’épanouira davantage au fil de
notre siècle.
—Cam Roe
Président du Club Alpin du Canada
●
Centennial Gazette
●
2006
61
INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAINEERING AND CLIMBING FEDERATION
UNION INTERNATIONALE DES ASSOCIATIONS D'ALPINISME
Bern, January 2006
To the President and all the members of the Alpine Club of Canada
On behalf of all member clubs and federations of the Union Internationale des
Associations d’Alpinisme (UIAA) it gives me great pleasure to extend our warm
greetings and congratulations to the Alpine Club of Canada on reaching its
centennial.
For many years the ACC has played an important role in the UIAA, sitting on
many of the commissions and the competition committees. We have always been
grateful for the involvement with which your members have represented Canada
at our meetings.
When we think of your wilderness and your protected areas, we can only
compliment you on the foresight that you have taken to preserve your mountain
places. By doing this you have done a favour for the members of the UIAA and all
the other people who love and respect our mountains and wilderness.
We think of the vitality of Canadians and how young a country you are, we must
believe that the ACC will have a continuing important role to play in Canadian
society by being a group that not only speaks for the preservation of your
mountains, but that also recognizes the importance of recreating in them.
Not only do you have some of the world’s top climbers but your guiding community
has a reputation for excellence. How you work with your land managers and the
way you manage your mountain huts has shown the success of good practices.
In October 2006 we will have the opportunity to join your celebrations when the
ACC generously hosts the General Assembly of the UIAA. We will have important
work to accomplish in Canada but can think of few better places to meet than in
the Rocky Mountains. We are looking forward to meeting with your members and
having the opportunity to visit your wonderful country.
We wish the ACC a new century of distinction.
Pierre Humblet, UIAA President a.i.
The UIAA thanks its partners: Bask, Entre-Prises, Grivel
UIAA Office ● Monbijoustrasse 61 ● Postfach ● CH-3000 Berne 23
t: +41 (0)31 370 18 28 f: +41 (0)31 370 18 38 e: [email protected]
●
SWITZERLAND
w: www.uiaa.ch
congratulations
on your 100 years of alpinism
800 638 6464
www.patagonia.com
Contemplating a new route in the Pigeon Feathers, Bugaboos.
Photo: Andrew Querner
Patagonia pledges at least 1% of sales,
$20 million in grants and in-kind donations
to date, to the preservation and restoration
of the natural environment.
© 2006 Patagonia, Inc.
Congratulations
on your first 100 years
CPR ad which appeared in the
Canadian Alpine Journal,
Vol. 7, 1916.
CPR has been a proud supporter
of The Alpine Club of Canada since 1906.
www.cpr.ca
!
Adjustable U-Bar™
Pivoting Waist Belt
Fit-Lock
2001- Quantum™ adjustable fit sleeping bag earns Backpacker Mag “Editors Choice Award”
2003- Waypoint™ tent features first welded seam construction in an outdoor product
2004- Spectre SL™ sleeping bag earns Backpacker Mag “Editors Choice Award”
Pivoting Waist
Belt
U-Bar
2000- Trango 2 and 3.1 tents earn American Alpine Institute “Guides Choice Award”
OUR EXODUS™ SYSTEM MOVES WITH YOU FOR UNMATCHED COMFORT AND MOBILITY
• ADJUSTABLE U-BAR CONNECTS THE YOKE TO THE FRAME, DISTRIBUTING WEIGHT EVENLY • THE FIT-LOCK HARNESS CUSTOM CONTOURS TO YOUR SHAPE
• PIVOTING WAIST BELT ADJUSTS TO YOUR POSTURE AS YOU MOVE
1999- Original Pack Pant™ earns Backpacker Mag “Editors Choice Award”
Fit-Lock™ Harness
1996- Patented the “Tension Shelf™” in our tents
e n
th o ing
to ada er
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tio C a
la f nt
tu o u
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ng Cl of
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i
lp yea
0
A
2005- Introduced the innovative Maneuver™ Soft Shell Jacket
1995- Ethereal Parka earns Backpacker Magazine “Editors Choice Award”
1994- Introduced first window use in tent flys
10
2006- Introducing the new innovative line of suspension packs
1993- Mountain Hardwear ® founded
Each one of us dreams dreams and sees
visions. The peaks we climb in our reveries are
nobler than any we can hope to ascend in real
life, but it is our visionary mountains which
govern our actual accomplishments.
—Cyril Wates
The Gazette, 1938

1906 - 2006 Alpine Club of Canada`s The

Transcription

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