Oregon Country / Columbia District, 1818–1846
Wikipedia

The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the disputed Oregon Country. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810. The North West Company was absorbed into the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821 under which the Columbia District became known as the Columbia Department. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 marked the effective end of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Columbia Department.

Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] led the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Expedition to Mount Robson. In his report he stated,

Owing to a peculiar isolated rock pillar that rises from its eastern arête, the peak has been referred to here as “Mt. Gendarme,” the view from the summit was of tremendous interest on account of the new features it disclosed.

The valley of the Miette and upper Fraser rivers was formerly so called because it was traversed by the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trail to New Caledonia (present British Columbia between latitudes 51° 30′, and 57° 00′); name now obsolete.

Jasper House and Roche Miette, Sandford Fleming expedition. Photo: Charles Horetzky, 1872
Parks Canada

“Roche Miette” and other local features derive their names from Baptiste Millette, an employee of the fur-trading North West Company. In the archives of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Parks Canada historian David Smyth has found records of at least six Miettes engaged by the North West Company in the period between 1797 and 1819:

None spelled their last name Miette; one was recorded as Millet, while the others were almost exclusively spelled Millette. One of these, a Baptiste Millette, is almost certainly the employee after whom Roche Miette and the other features are named. According to a North West Company account book of 1811-21 there was an ex-employee named Baptiste Millette or Milliette living as a freeman in the Athabasca River Department in 1812 and 1813. His trading account ends with an 1813 entry, and nothing further about him is known either before or after this time. None of the other Millettes were apparently stationed in that department.

— Smyth

When Gabriel Franchère [1786–1863] crossed the Athabasca Pass in 1814 on his way from Fort Astoria to Montréal, the name “le Rocher à Miette” was already in use. He wrote in his journal for May 18:

Nous passames un gros Cap qui s’appelle le Rocher à Miette, ou ayant sondé la profondeur de l’eau au piéd de ce rocher, nous trouvâmes la riviére en cet endroit Guéable. … Le Rocher à Miette dont j’ai parlé plus haut qui est très élevé, vue du lac représente le portail d’une Eglise prise de Côté.

[We passed a headland called Miette Rock, sounded the depth of water at its foot, and found that the [Athabasca] river could be forded at this spot.… The Miette Rock that I mentioned earlier, which is very high, when seen from the lake resembles the side view of a church portal.]

— Franchère

Smyth concludes that the story of Miette having climbed his rock is likely true:

Lieutenant Aemilius Simpson, a newly engaged Hudson’s Bay Company officer, recorded the first version of the mountain climbing story in 1826. In his journal he described ‘Milletes Rock’ and stated that it derived its name “from a Canadian, who asserted that he had ascended to its summit”. Paul Kane was told a more embellished tale in 1846, while Dr. James Hector recorded a simpler version in 1859. Despite the unlikely details of Kane’s story and of later versions, it is probably true that Baptiste Millette climbed Roche Miette before Franchère’s visit.

Geographical Review 1916

Sketch map of the Canadian Alps. Scale, 1:4,000,000.

The insets show in greater detail the Selkirks (upper right) and the Rocky Mountains (lower left) where they are crossed by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Note. The altitudes of the following peaks should read thus: Mt. Bryce (52° N. and 117⅜° W.), 11,800 ft.; Mt. Sorcerer (51½° N. and 118° W.), 10,410 ft.; Mt. Assiniboine (51° N. and 115⅔° W.), 11,860 ft.; Mt. Collie (lower left inset), 10,315 ft.

The following changes should also be made: Upper Columbia L.” (50¼° N. and 116° W.) to Columbia L.; Mt. Thomson” (lower left inset) to Mt. Thompson.

Charles Ernest Fay [1846–1931] was an American alpinist and educator. Professor Fay first visited the Canadian Rockies in 1890, and was a pioneer in the development of mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirks. He was a founder of the Appalachian Mountain Club, and served as president in 1878, 1881, 1893, and 1905; he was also a founder and the first president of the American Alpine Club (1902-1904).

Adopted in 1994 as a long-established local name. Referred to locally as the north branch of the Doré River.

Adopted in 1994 as an established local name. This is the “Ozalenka valley” that is a popular recreation destination, named in association with Ozalenka Peak.

An established local name associated with Ozalenka Peak.

In the 1940s the name “Osilinka” was proposed for the mountain, however, as this is a Sekani name translated as “river where wild rhubarb grows, ”and that refers to a river in the Omineca watershed), the proposal was turned down. McBride-area residents adjusted the spelling of “their” peak, and the name became entrenched.

The Ozelanka Alpine Club, formed in 1991, is open to residents of the Robson Valley. The club maintains a cabin in the Ozalenka valley named the Glen Stanley Alpine Hut after one of the club’s founders.