Early days of the British Columbia Mountaineering Club

As more and more newcomers began to explore the mountains, they became increasingly aware of one another’s efforts. In October 1907, they formed a club to coordinate their activities. This club represented the origins of the Vancouver Mountaineering Club (which soon after became the British Columbia Mountaineering Club, or the BCMC).

In 1910, club members entered the Garibaldi region and, with members of the Alpine Club of Canada, investigated the southern approaches of Mount Garibaldi and climbed Mount Mamquam (originally called Mount Rosa), Mount Sentinel and Castle Towers. Other early adventures for the BCMC included ascents of White Mountain and Seymour Mountain. Group members also cut a trail up Grouse Mountain.

When John Davidson arrived in 1911, Vancouver was a town rising up from logging debris and fire scars, and travel through the surrounding mountains was still very difficult. Davidson later wrote, “Transportation of supplies in such a mountainous and heavily timbered country would incur an almost prohibitive expenditure, but occasional opportunities are afforded for carrying on exploration at reasonable cost.” As the city’s population grew, more newcomers explored the surrounding area and here they “re-discovered” the beautiful landscape that the Coast Salish had known for thousands of years.

Davidson’s travels to Garibaldi

Getting to Mount Garibaldi from Vancouver took two days by boat to the settlement of Squamish, followed by a 32-kilometre (20-mile) trek along the Pemberton Trail. The construction of the Howe Sound and Squamish Railway in 1910 and the creation of a portion of the Pacific Great Eastern (PGE) Railway in 1912 made it possible to shorten the trip with a train ride from Squamish to Daisy Lake, which was still some distance from the alpine meadows at Garibaldi Lake.

In 1912, William J. Gray blazed a trail from the junction of Stony Creek (now Rubble Creek) and the Cheakamus River to Black Tusk Meadows. This later developed into a rough trail over which the BC Mountaineering Club sent a group to camp and explore the backcountry.

Davidson climbed in the area with the BCMC in 1912 and 1913. They left for Pemberton Trail on August 5, 1912, and arrived at the main camp the next evening. The days were “very, very hot” with “thousands of mosquitoes, bull-flies, and other large flies.” This was followed by a heavy rain that soaked his specimen drying paper and near freezing temperatures at night. On August 10, Davidson “went up part of Black tusk but was too cold & wet to go far” because of sleet falling on the mountainside. After botanizing, he returned to Vancouver on August 18.

On that same trip, club members took aneroid measurements (air-pressure measurements) that showed the peak of Black Tusk to be about 9000 feet high (2768 metres). Many of the mountains in this range of volcanic rock resembled giant sponges. Steam that escaped during their period of eruption thousands of years earlier had made the rock porous.

From 1912 onwards, John Davidson used the Garibaldi region as a large outdoor classroom, first with the Mountaineering Club and later with the Vancouver Natural History Society. He introduced several hundred people to the flora of the mountainous area.

Natural history activities

These botanical trips benefited researchers in other sciences as well. Burwash, who accompanied the party in 1913 and wrote an account of his observations for the Journal of Geology, “thoroughly investigated” the geology of the region.

BCMC members, of course, remained very active botanizers. Korten made a collection of small mammals, which he forwarded on to Ottawa, and H. Sampson made collections of the butterflies and moths peculiar to the alpine regions. However, “The larger animals such as wolves, bears, goats, mountain sheep, etc., which inhabit this region were left severely alone,” according to Davidson. For the first two years, Gray looked after topographical survey and mapping work until C. Heaney of the British Columbia Land Survey (BCLS), who was “singularly expert at this kind of work,” took over in 1914.

In 1914, Davidson and friends collected live specimens from Mount Garibaldi to take back to the botanical garden at Essondale. They created a temporary miniature botanical garden at the campground, where the specimens could live until they were ready to leave. About 80 species from the Garibaldi region were then growing and thriving at Essondale. Davidson later explained that:

This botanic garden idea became infectious, for it was noticed that nearly every tent at the camp had its own little garden and no doubt specimens from Garibaldi will be seen during the summer, flowering in many gardens in the vicinity of Vancouver.

Climbers also visited the Garibaldi region, often adding to the collection of resources for the area. In July 1913, Caroline Pansy Munday (1892–1917) and Loretto Clotilda Hanafin (1889–1958), both of Vancouver, became the first women to reach the summit of Garibaldi. That same year, Gray created a map of the Garibaldi area (PDF, 0.98 MB). In 1918, Professor E.M. Burwash improved upon this map in his book, The Geology of Vancouver and Vicinity, and in 1926, Dr. Neal M. Carter carried out a photographic survey of the known climbing area.