Paul Kane
Self-portrait, 1846-1848
Wikipedia
Jasper House East Side Rocky Mountains
Field sketch, 1847
Wikipedia
Paul Kane, “Boat Encampment,” Hudson’s Bay Company voyaguers, oil on canvas, 1849–1856
Royal Ontario Museum ROM2009_11209_41
Paul Kane [1810–1871]
b. 1810 — Mallow, County Cork, Ireland
d. 1871 — Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Kane was an Irish-born Canadian painter, famous for his paintings of First Nations peoples in the Canadian West and other Native Americans in the Columbia Departmentof the fur trade.
A largely self-educated artist, Paul Kane grew up in York, Upper Canada (now Toronto), and trained himself by copying European masters on a “Grand Tour” study trip through Europe. He undertook two voyages through the Canadian northwest in 1845 and from 1846 to 1848. The first trip took him from Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie and back. Having secured the support of the Hudson’s Bay Company, he set out on a second, much longer voyage from Toronto across the Rocky Mountains. On October 6, 1846, Kane left Edmonton for Fort Assiniboine, where he again embarked with a canoe brigade up the Athabasca River to Jasper House, arriving on November 3. Here he joined a large horse troop bound west, but the party soon had to send the horses back to Jasper’s House and continue on snowshoes, taking only the essentials with them, because Athabasca Pass was already too deeply snowed in that late in the year. They crossed the pass on November 12 and three days later joined a canoe brigade that had been waiting to take them down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver (present-day Vancouver, Washington) and Fort Victoria (present day Victoria, British Columbia).
On both trips Kane sketched and painted First Nations and Métis peoples. Upon his return to Toronto, he produced more than one hundred oil paintings from these sketches. The oil paintings he completed in his studio are considered a part of the Canadian heritage, although he often embellished them considerably, departing from the accuracy of his field sketches in favour of more dramatic scenes.
Paul Kane
Self-portrait, 1846-1848
Wikipedia
Named for artist Paul Kane [1810–1871] by the Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission.
In reference to Mount Kane.
Captain Lawrence Edward Grace Oates during the British Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1913, ca 1911
Wikipedia
Lawrence Edward Grace “Titus” Oates [1880 – 1912] was a British army officer, and later an Antarctic explorer, who died from hypothermia during Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1911–1912. Oates walked from his tent into a blizzard on his 32nd birthday, in what is seen as an act of self-sacrifice. Oates was suffering from gangrene and frostbite, compromising his three companions’ chances of survival. According to the diary of Commander Robert Falcon Scott, CVO, [1868–1912], as Oates left the tent he said, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” The three other members of the party also perished over the next few days; Edgar Evans [1876-1912] had died previously.
Three mountains in the Whirlpool River valley were named in 1913 to commemorate men lost in the expedition. See Mount Scott.
See Mount Hooker.
Named in association with Mount Hooker.
Robert Falcon Scott in full regalia
Wikipedia
Named after Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO, [1868–1912], commander of two British Antarctic expeditions. On the second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, less than five weeks after Amundsen’s South Pole expedition. A planned meeting with supporting dog teams from the base camp failed, despite Scott’s written instructions, and at a distance of 260 km from their base camp Scott and his companions died.
Three mountains in the Whirlpool River valley were named in 1913 to commemorate men lost in Robert Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1911–1912. A group of five men attained the Pole on 17 January 1912. The party perished as they attempted to return to the base camp.
Mount Scott recognizes Robert Falcon Scott [1868–1912]
Mount Evans recognizes Edgar Evans [1876-1912]
Mount Oates recognizes Lawrence Oates [1880 – 1912]
The other two fatalities were Henry Bowers [1883-1912] and Edward Wilson [1872-1912].
The names were suggested by British adventurers Arnold Louis Mumm [1859–1927] and Geoffrey Eliot Howard [1877–1956], who travelled up the Whirlpool River valley under the guidance of Fred Stephens in 1913.
Howard noted:
Several times we tried to climb to some viewpoint, but the terrible timber foiled us, till at last we reached a more open spot, got up a fair-sized mountain and discovered to our pleasure a fine range close by which was uncharted. The larger peaks we named Mt. Scott, Mt. Oates and Mt. Patricia, names which I believe the Geographical Board at Ottawa subsequently adopted.
As to the name “Mount Patricia,” whether or not it had relevance to the Scott expedition, it was not adopted, and surveyor Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] of the Alberta-British Columbia Boundary Commission, who worked the area in 1920, wrote:
The south branch [of the Whirlpool River] is the main stream. Some four miles up from the junction with the middle branch the valley floor is a wide gravel fat through which the stream flows in numerous channels. The flat has a length of about two and a half miles. Near the upper end it turns and leads to a large glacier, being divided into two parts by a thickly forested elevation rising between them. The glacier which has undoubtedly originated the gravel flat, is the surplus discharge of a broad icefield at the northeastern corner of which stands Mt. Scott, and Mt. Hooker at the southwestern. The name “Scott” was given to a mountain and to the glacier by A. L. Mumm, Vice-President of the Alpine Club (England), after the celebrated explorer who lost his life in his famous expedition to discover the South Pole. In 1913 Messrs A. L. Mumm and Geoffrey Howard visited Athabasca Pass in an endeavour to elucidate the mystery of Mts. Brown and Hooker. It appears, however, that the name Mt. Scott was conferred upon the mountain that was named Hooker by David Douglas and, in consequence, the name has been transferred to the high mountain at the northeastern corner of the icefield. These gentlemen also appear to have conferred the name Mt. Patricia upon the massif here referred to as Mt. Fryatt. The latter is thought to be more appropriate in conjunction with Mt. Edith Cavell, directly opposite on the other side of the valley of the Whirlpool.
In Mumm’s memoriam, Wheeler wrote:
At the close of the first Mt. Robson Camp in 1913, we find Mumm and G. E. Howard with Inderbinen exploring up the Whirlpool River with the object in view of visiting Athabasca Pass and Mts. Brown and Hooker, and incidentally, if the fates were kind, of finding a route from it to the true Mt. Geikie, the kingpin of the famous Tonquin Valley, in distinction to the mountain now named Edith Cavell. The account of the exploration is in two parts, one by Howard and one by Mumm; they are delightful reading. At the time, several topographical features were named by them for members of the ill-fated Scott expedition to the South Pole, of which Mt. Scott, Scott Glacier, Mt. Evans and Mt. Oates have been confirmed.
Ross Cox [1793–1853] was an Irish clerk in the Pacific Fur Company and the North West Company, later writing of his experiences. Cox was born in Ireland and emigrated to America in 1811, becoming a clerk in the Pacific Fur Company. He arrived in Fort Astoria in 1812, the primary station of the PFC. Due to the War of 1812 the company was liquidated and sold to the North West Company in 1813. He then became a clerk with the North West Company, but he retired 1817, crossing the Athabasca Pass. Cox returned to Ireland. He became the Irish correspondent for the London Morning Herald as well as a clerk in the Dublin police office. He married Hannah Cumming in 1819, and had several children. He died in Dublin.
Cox’s Adventures on the Columbia River (London, 1831) is one of the most important documents relating to the later history of the North West Company.
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