The pass was named by members of the expedition of Mary Lenore Jobe Akeley [1878–1966] and Donald “Curly” Phillips [1884–1938] to Mount Kitchi (Mount Sir Alexander) in 1914.

From Jones Pass we cut our way through dense woods down a steep declivity to broad open muskeg on the West Branch of the Jack Pine. After traveling about six miles through this meadow we came to a low pass, 5,300 feet, filled with beaver dams and houses. We named this pass Beaver Dam Pass. It separates Fraser and Peace waters.

“The name is due to evidence of beaver-dams and houses seen at the time of their exploration in 1914,” wrote boundary surveyor Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945]. “No signs of beavers were now seen around the small tarn close to the summit of the pass on the Alberta side of the watershed, or in the small stream flowing from it. They seem to have either been trapped out or to have left the locality.” Beaverdam Pass was a camera station on the survey, which worked through the Yellowhead Pass in 1917.