Whether traveling among the mountains or climbing, hiking, or skiing, have you ever wondered where the names of the peaks, rivers and lakes ever came from, or who named them and why? This book is an effort to do just that for a particular part of North America that rivals the European Alps in fame. Climbing and exploration in the Canadian Rockies and the interior ranges of British Columbia is relatively recent compared to that of Europe’s Alps whose golden age occurred in the early 1800s. Much of British Columbia was only known with the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, and peaks exist that are yet unclimbed — and in some cases unnamed. Alberta’s Rocky Mountains and British Columbia’s Selkirks, Purcells, Cariboos and Monashees compose what is here referred to as the “Canadian Alps.” The authors have done all within their scope of knowledge and expertise and relied on many outside sources to compile this text, which is meant as an entertaining and informative treatise on the toponymy of this increasingly popular alpine region. Accompanied by the photographs of Glen W. Boles and Roger W. Laurilla, co-authors with William L. Putnam, here is a book any avid mountaineer, skier or hiker will require in his or her library. Visitors from abroad, whether active in the mountains or not, may find this book an informative necessity as they drive through our mountain national parks. For the authors, this book has been a labor of love — for the mountains they love and for all those who love the mountains and find themselves curious of the names bestowed on the geographic features surrounding them.
