“Cheadle’s horse was the most extraordinary-looking animal in the whole cavalcade. Bucephalus stood about fifteen hands, was straight in the shoulder, one of his legs was malformed and crooked, his head was very large, and his tail very long. On the road he was continually stumbling; and when Cheadle rode him about the settlement, he was at first nearly pitched over every gate and fence he came to. But he turned up the most useful horse of the whole number, galloping over the roughest ground after buffalo without ever making a mistake, or giving his rider a fall, and eventually carried packs over the mountains into British Columbia.” Walter Butler Cheadle [1835–1910] crossed the Yellowhead Pass with William Wentworth Fitzwilliam Milton [1839–1877] in 1863.

The original Bucephalus (“bull-headed”) was the horse of Alexander the Great of Macedon.