Jarvis Lakes

British Columbia. Lakes: Peace River drainage
N of Kakwa Lake near BC-Alberta boundary
54.0931 N 120.1967 W — Map 093I01 — GoogleGeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1965
Official in BCCanada

Adopted 17 August 1965 on 93I, as labelled on BC map 1H, 1917, and on plan 10T264, “Topographic survey of head of McGregor River” by A.J. Campbell, BCLS, 1929, and as recommended for adoption by BC Geographic Division 1933 (file 34275s #3

Five lakes in the chain. 3 drain east to Kakwa River, the other 2 drain west through Jarvis Creek.

Named by R. W. Jones, a GTP surveyor who was in the area about 1904-06 (information from S. Prescott Fay, file P.1.47).

Jarvis Creek flows out of a chain of 5 lakes…” (excerpt from Major Hannington’s journal, 24 February 1875, being an account of his explorations with E.W. Jarvis, 1874-75, and marking this location as “Summit between B.Columbia and the N.W. Territory”

This feature had been mis-labelled “Barbara Lakes” on “Exploration…Wapiti River to the Fraser River” compiled in 1928 by H.G. Dimsdale & Prentiss Gray (Geog. map 14-P) “….we found in Jarvis Pass a chain of four beautiful lakes, sketched by Mr. Prescott Fay about 1914, fed by the perpetual snows and ice-fields of Mounts Teepee and Kitchi [sic]. These lakes were the principal source of the Barbara River [sic], so we called them Barbara Lakes….” ( from”A New Low Pass of the Rockies” by Prentiss Gray, published in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. vol LXXX No.2, August 1932) [note that Gray’s names “Barbara River” and “Barbara Lakes” (after his daughter) were not accepted – he had simply ignored the prior existence of “Jarvis”.

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