While engaged in geological work in the southern inland portion of British Columbia during the years 1877, 1888, 1889, and 1890, George Mercer Dawson [1849–1901] made notes and observations on the Secwépemc (Shuswap people). He stated the highest mountain that the Kamloops Indians knew of is on the north side of the valley at Tête Jaune Cache, about ten miles from the valley. “This is named Yuh-hai-has’-kun, from the appearance of a spiral road running up it. No one has ever been known to reach the top, though a former chief of Tsuk-tsuk-kwālk, on the North Thompson, was near the top once when hunting goats. When he realized how high he had climbed he became frightened and returned”(1).

In his list of Shuswap names of places on the Kamloops Sheet of the Geological Map of British Columbia, Dawson includes Tsuk-tsuk-kwālk, a reservation on the North Thompson that means “red place (trees)” in the native language.