July 26 – September 25, 1912
(Dates based on field notes)

In 1912 Charles Doolittle Walcott [1850–1927] led a Smithsonian Institution expedition exploring the area around the “Monarch of the Canadian Rockies,” Mount Robson. None of his listed publications indicate the dates of the expedition, but his field notes cover the period from July 26 to September 5.[1]

Walcott had already written about the Canadian Rockies in 1911 as a “Geologist’s Paradise,” where he noted:

During the past three years an expedition from the Smithsonian has been making an examination of the four miles or more in thickness of bedded rocks forming the main range of the Rocky Mountains that has been pushed eastward by the great mass of the Selkirk ranges to the west. [2]

Walcott was approached by Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] to join the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada expedition. Walcott had planned to lead the group of biologists and hunters who did join the expedition, but his wife Helena died in a train accident on July 11. His son Charles Doolittle Walcott Jr. [1889–1913] took part as a hunter.

In 1912 Walcott lead his own expedition. “It was to learn the geology and the record of the life of Cambrian times that led and forced me summer after summer to traverse and live in those grand and beautiful Rockies.” His son Sidney Stephens Walcott, [1892–1977] was among the party, “all of whom were qualified by experience and physique to overcome the physical obstacles and hardships of the trip.” During this trip Walcott proposed many new names and name changes for places in the area, including Tah Pass for Moose Pass.[3]

A Smithsonian Institution publication resulted from the expedition. [4]