Origin of the name unknown.

Located about 71 km west of McBride leaving Highway 16 to the north. The Walker Creek FSR has been heavily logged but one can still find stands of old-growth cedar/hemlock at 7km and between 10-20km along the road. There are also viewscapes of cedar/hemlock forests reaching up the mountain sides along this road. Watch for grizzly bear on the road and salmon at 22km.

The Walker Creek Forest Service Road provides primary access to Kakwa Provincial Park, but since September 2021 the road is closed at 37 km.

The western portion of British North America, showing the route followed by Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle, from the Saskatchewan to British Columbia, 1863-4
University of British Columbia Library

Detail of the route followed by Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle, from the Saskatchewan to British Columbia, 1863-4
UBC Library Digital Collections

Portion Occidentale de la Nouvelle Bretagne indiquant la route survie par lord Milton et le Dr Cheadle
Voyage de l’Altantique au Pacifique

Milton and Cheadle travelled through the Yellowhead Pass in 1863.

Surveying the view to the west from Gendarme Mountain during the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition, Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] wrote:

The valley is a very beautiful one with green alp-lands, shining silver streams and two large ponds visible beside them. It drains to a larger timbered valley trending N. W. and S.E. to the Smoky River. Phillips has named the stream in the valley below us “Wolverine Creek.

Donald “Curly” Phillips [1884–1938]

In French-speaking parts of Canada, the wolverine is referred to as carcajou, borrowed from the Innu-aimun or Montagnais kuàkuàtsheu. However, in France, the wolverine’s name is glouton (glutton).

David Thompson [1770–1857] followed the Whirlpool River when he made the first recorded crossing of the Athabasca Pass in 1811. Working for the North West Company, he was in search of the mouth of the Columbia River.

Thompson makes a score of references to whirlpools in his narrative, but does not give that name to this river. He considered he was ascending to the head of the Athabasca River, whose headwaters actually lead as far as south the Columbia Icefield.

The earliest reference I have found to “Whirlpool River” is in the journal of James Hector [1834–1907] of the Palliser expedition, February 13, 1859:

Tekarra’s foot is so much inflamed with his hunting exertions, that he will not be able to guide us up the valley to the Committee’s Punch Bowl, so changed my plan and followed up the main stream of the Athabasca instead. At noon we reached the mouth of Whirlpool River, which is the stream that descends from the Committee’s Punch Bowl, and I found the latitude 52° 46′ 54″