Committee Punch Bowl adopted in Place Names of Alberta, 1928, as labelled on BC-Alberta Boundary map 27, 1921.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

As labelled on the first edition of John Arrowsmith's 1832 map of British North America, and on Arrowsmith's 1859 map "Provinces of British Columbia & Vancouver Island with portion of the United States & Hudson's Bay Territories", and on the map of British North America published in "The Northwest Passage by Land" by Milton & Cheadle, 1864. Labelled "Summit Committees Punch Bowl" on Trutch's 1871 map of British Columbia.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"In his narrative of his journey across Athabaska Pass from the west with Sir George Simpson in 1825, Alexander Ross notes that the small circular basin of water at the summit, twenty yards in diameter, is dignified with the name of the 'Committee's Punch Bowl' in honour of which the Governor treated them to a bottle of wine as they had 'neither time nor convenience to make a bowl of punch, although a glass of it would have been acceptable.' It is, he adds, 'a tribute always paid to this place when a nabob of the fur trade passes by.' The reference is to the governing committee of the Hudson's Bay Company."

Source: Place Names of Alberta; published for the Geographic Board by Department of Interior, Ottawa, 1928.

"It used to be a great camping ground of the Northwesters, and it was there that they brought the horses over. I remember that there were dozens of trees there blazed with the names of various traders - some of them very well known - and the date of their going through. It lies between Mt. Brown and Mt. Hooker going up from the Boat Encampment where the boats used to go to meet the horses. The boats used to go up the Columbia from Fort Colville to the Boat Encampment and there take aboard the horses that had been brought over from the prairie country. At this Committee's Punch Bowl there was a sort of pond about a quarter of an acre in extent. The water of that pond looked very dark. The Northwesters used to be in the habit of carrying with them a good supply of rum, and at this particular spot they would indulge in some pretty deep draughts - hence the name." (As explained to Noel Robinson by Water Moberly (in 1914?), and published in "Blazing the Trail Through the Rockies: The story of Walter Moberly and his share in the making of Vancouver," by Noel Robinson and The Old Man Himself, c1915, p.31 - published by OpenLibrary.org)

Source: included with note