IRISH
PATRIOT WHEELER NAMES LOCAL
PEAKS AFTER GENERALS
BY JACKIE GOLD CANMORE LEADER STAFF
A.0. Wheeler, co-founder of the Alpine Club of Canada, was
born in Kilkenny , Ireland on May 1, 1860 to Captain Edward
Oliver Wheeler and Josephine Helsham Wheeler. The family
came to Canada in 1876, an exciting experience for Wheeler
who was just 16 at the time.
Wheeler received his education
in Dublin, Ballinasloe College, Galway, and in Dulwich
College, London, England, and when he arrived in Canada
he served an apprenticeship with Ryley & Hamilton,
and with Elihu Stewart of Collingwood.
Wheeler spent his first year in Canada surveying in the Bruce
Mines area of Ontario with Ryley & Hamilton, before
taking up with Stewarton performing Indian Reserve surveys
in Canada 's new west. This experience would be the start of
his love of Western Canada.
In 1883 and 1884 Wheeler performed
township and townsite surveys for the Dominion Government
and the Canadian Pacific
Railway in the West, before the Riel Rebellion broke out.
During the rebellion, which began in 1885, Wheeler served
as a lieutenant with the DLS Intelligence Corps. When the
rebellion was over Wheeler returned to surveying, and
began to experiment with some of the new technology that
had begun to emerge. Working for the Department of the Interior,
his first chief, Dr. Deville, trained him in photo-topographical
surveying. BY 1911 Wheeler had earned the necessary qualifications
he needed to be a surveyor, including
his OLS in 1881, his DLS and MLS in 1882, his BCLS in 1891,
and his ALS.
In 1913 he was British Columbia 's commissioner
for establishing the inter-provincial boundary between that
province and Alberta . The project lasted 11 years, and was
a gruelling task that involved making a detailed map of
the border.
While doing the survey work for the Boundary Commission he
received permission from the Geographic Board of Canada
to name the peaks in the Kananaskis area. The decision would
be one that many would regret, as Wheeler, in a fit of patriotism,
named most of the peaks after World War I generals, blatantly
ignoring the first mandate of peak naming, which is to
reflect the natural history of the area.
Wheeler wrote in 1916 that the Kananaskis region had, "many
striking peaks... they are all dominated by the great peak
named Mt. Joffre and have been given the names of distinguished
generals who have rendered such names immortal through
their splendid service to France in the great war now in progress."
On Wheeler's advice many of the other peaks in the Rockies
were named after British admirals and even warships that took
part in World War I, prompting R.M. Patterson, in a 1961 publication
entitled The Buffalo Head, to say that, "The Rockies
must sadly be the worst-named range in the world.”
With his work taking Wheeler throughout the Rocky Mountains
, it is no wonder he fell in love with their quiet grandeur.
In 1906 he and Elizabeth Parker co-founded the Alpine
Club of Canada . Wheeler served as the first president
until 1910, and was responsible for setting up meetings at
various historical sites.
In 1913, while surveying for the Boundary Commission, the
53-year-old Wheeler led an expedition that would later
become known for the first ascent of Mount Robson . The guides
were not fans of Wheeler, however, saying later that they found
him to be arrogant, conceited and autocratic.
Their dislike of him was so deeply rooted that Edward Feuz
Jr, who had saved Wheeler's life as he was sailing down a slope
towards a 1,000 foot drop off, said later that he thought that
perhaps it may have been better to let him fall instead.
In
later years Wheeler went on to help build trails in the region
during the Alpine Club of Canada's mountaineering camp in
1922. In 1929, he became an honourary member of the Dominion
Land Surveyors' Association that would later become the Canadian
Institute of Surveying.
Wheeler, also an honourary member of the Alpine clubs of England,
France and America, died March 20,1945.
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