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HECTOR GAVE NAMES TO OUR LANDMARKS
BY JACKIE GOLD FOR THE BANFF CRAG & CANYON

James Hector, born in 1834, came to Canada after being recommended by the president of the Royal Geographic Society, Sir Roderick Murchison, for the Palliser Ex­pedition. The expedition, a scientific endeavour, would challenge those on it to test their physical and mental bounds. Yet the sites seen on the journey were some of the most breathtaking the expeditioners would ever encounter.

When the group reached the Rockies in 1858, Hector, now 28, was told to explore any of the most geologically interesting areas. He proceeded up the Bow Valley , accom­panied by Eugene Bourgeau, the Palliser botanist, giving names to many of the mountains and major landforms along his way.

Hector was in his element in the Rocky Mountains , delighting in the abundance of materials for him to study. The variety of geological subjects was especially appreciated after a dry spell across the prairies, when his survey attempts had been thwart­ed by the thick layer of clay that had been glacially deposited on the plains.

Peter Erasmus, a guide with the Palliser expedition, spent the majority of his time with Hector. Fluent in nine different lan­guages, six of them Native languages, he was an extremely well educated man. After the expedition Erasmus wrote a book called Buffalo Days and Nights, in which he said that, "Dr. Hector was a tire­less worker. His capacity for endurance in any kind of weather was the talk of men around camp.'

"There was no let up in his persistence, as day after day, all except Sunday, he con­tinued his unending labours to cover as wide a range of territory as possible," Eras­mus added. "He had an affable, easy manner of conversation with any person he was speaking to. A thoroughly pleasing personality that had nothing of that assumed superiority or condescend­ing mannerism that I was beginning to associate with all Englishmen of my nar­row acquaintance. I liked the man at once and nothing in my experience on the expe­dition or elsewhere ever changed this good opinion."

Hector's travels throughout the areas now part of Banff National Park , Kootenay National Park and Yoho National Park were not without their hardships, however. In September of 1858, having just returned to the Castle Mountain area after exploring the mountains in Kootenay, Hector wrote that, "It was not 'til we got the food that we all found out how depressed and weak we were, as desperation had been keeping us up."

"I had refrained from killing a horse sooner, as I have been warned by experi­enced travellers that once the first horse is killed for food many more are sure to follow, as the flesh of a horse out of condition is so inferior as merely to create a craving for large quantities of it, without giving the strength or vigour induce the hunters to exert themselves to kill other game," Hector added later in the entry.

"The prospect of starving is then looked on with indifference, as they know it will ­be avoided by killing another horse, until at last too few are left to carry the necessaries for the party, who then undergo great sufferings, and, as in the case of several American expeditions, some may even perish.”

Mount Hector , Lake Hector , Kicking Horse Pass and Goodsir Pass all received their names from Hector, along with a number of other geological features scattered across the three parks.

In August of 1858 Hector wrote of an un­usual mountain that they had passed earli­er in the day. "Seeming to stand out in the centre of the valley is a very remarkable mountain, still at the distance of 12 miles, which looks exactly like a gigantic castle.” Indeed the name stuck and though it was briefly known as Mount Eisenhower during the Second World War, it reverted to the Castle Mountain name given to it by Hector relatively quickly.

Kicking Horse Pass, though quite a dis­tance away, was given its name not for Hec­tor however, but for his horse, who, having had enough of the rough and tumble life, had decided to rebel by kicking Hector in the chest. Those travelling with Hector thought he had received a mortal blow, as he was un­conscious for a long period of time, and ac­tually began the burial process. Hector would have been buried alive had he not managed to blink a number of times to convince his party that he was in­deed, alive, if not the worse for wear.

"My own saddle pony had anything but a gentle disposition and he hated fording rivers, specially the kind this one was,” Hector said one evening while retelling the tale to a hotel clerk. "I was having a good deal of trouble with him at one point, and finally went up behind him with a stick. I saw his heels fly up and then knew nothing more for hours. When I regained consciousness, my grave was dug and they were preparing to put me in it. So that's how the Kicking Horse got its name and that's how I came to have a grave in this part of the world."

Despite the trials and tribulations of the journey, Hector later returned to Banff and later Kicking Horse Pass with his son Dou­glas, to show him the areas he had explored in his youth. Ironically, a day after showing Douglas his own unused grave in the woods, his son came down with appendicitis, and though he was rushed to Revelstoke hospital, he died from the illness.

While Hector neither lived nor died in the park, his geological findings, and the names he gave to certain mountains and area he passed through helped to shape Banff both then and now.

Though he may have passed through the area before moving on to other geologi­cal endeavours, his legacy lives on in the names he left behind.

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