| Feature Type: | Mount - Variation of Mountain: Mass of land prominently elevated above the surrounding terrain, bounded by steep slopes and rising to a summit and/or peaks. ["Mount" preceding the name usually indicates that the feature is named after a person.] |
| Status: | Official |
| Name Authority: | BC Geographical Names Office |
| Relative Location: | Just NE of Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park, W of Golden, Kootenay Land District |
| Latitude-Longitude: | 51°18'29"N, 117°28'18"W at the approximate centre of this feature. |
| Datum: | WGS84 |
| NTS Map: | 82N/6 |
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Origin Notes and History:
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Named Mount Macdonald by Pricy Council Order in Council #551, 4 April 1887. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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Named after the Right Honourable Sir John A. Macdonald (1815 - 1891), Canada's 1st Prime Minister, 1867-1873, and also re-elected 1878-1891. For photographs and biographical information about all of Canada's Prime Ministers, see www.primeministers.ca; link also to "Canada's Prime Ministers" from Office of the Prime Minister homepage www.pm.gc.ca Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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In 1887 a surveyor with the party of J.E. Griffith, CE, building show sheds at Rogers Pass, climbed this mountain and carried a pole up from timberline to the summit. When Sir John A. MacDonald came along in the train on a tour on inspection, he was asked to look at the pole through the transit. He was noticed carefully wiping the front lens and on being [queried] said: " the pole might be painted upon it." [a reference to the clarity of the image]...". (verbal information from J.E. Griffith, 28 October 1924) Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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Originally named "Mt. Carroll" in 1886, after a member of Major Rogers' engineering party on the Canadian Pacific Railway survey in 1884-86. Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office |
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"....a Father of Confederation, and the first Prime Minister of Canada. Familiar to Canadians is Macdonald's famous quip that the country would 'rather have John A. drunk than George Brown sober.' Perhaps more worthy of recollection is another comment, which Macdonald passed on his Liberal competitor: 'The great reason why I have always been able to beat Brown is that I have been able to look a little ahead, while he could on no occasion forgo the temptation of temporary triumph'." Source: Akrigg, Helen B. and Akrigg, G.P.V; British Columbia Place Names; Sono Nis Press, Victoria 1986 /or University of British Columbia Press 1997 |