Adopted 29 July 1904 and so-identified in the 6th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 30 June 1906.

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

Named after A.O. Wheeler, DLS, (1860-1945), co-founder of the Alpine Club of Canada with Elizabeth Parker, and the club's first president, 1906. Long-time service with Dominion topographical survey.

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

Arthur Oliver Wheeler was born in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1860. Came to Canada at age 16 and took up the profession of land surveying. He began with surveys on the north shore of Lake Huron in 1877 and over the next few years gradually worked westward so that by 1884 he was part of the 'infamous' band of surveyors subdividing land in Saskatchewan. When the Riel Rebellion broke out, he joined a scout company formed of land surveyors from the Department of the Interior. The company, much to their dismay, spent most of their time following the troops rather than scouting ahead. Wheeler was wounded by a sniper's bullet at Batoche - before the battle! In 1890 he moved to the west coast where he entered private practice surveying timber lands. By 1893 he had rejoined the Department of the Interior and undertook land subdivision surveys near Edmonton. Shortly after, he was introduced to the photo-topographic methods of surveying and thus began his mountain surveys. He started with drainage basin surveys in the Alberta foothills, followed by mapping of the Crowsnest Coal Lands. High mountain surveys began in 1901 in the Selkirk Mountains and continued into the Rocky and Purcell Mountains in later years, for the purpose of providing topographic maps for the burgeoning interest of outdoor adventurers who had recently discovered the Canadian "Alps". The delineation and survey of the British Columbia-Alberta boundary was Wheeler's last major surveying project, serving as BC Boundary Commissioner to the Interprovincial Boundary survey, 1913-24. The survey was begun in 1913 and continued every summer until 1925, delineating some one thousand kilometres of the Continental Divide. It was a major effort that involved much detailed mapping in the areas adjacent to the border as well as the actual delineation of the boundary itself.
Wheeler had married Clara Macoun in 1886, the daughter of pioneering naturalist John Macoun, who had predicted that the prairies would be suitable for grain farming. Their only son, Oliver, made the first survey around Mount Everest in 1921, became Surveyor-General of India during WW II and was later knighted. Clara died in 1923 and Wheeler married Emmeline Savatard in 1924. The family continued to live at Sidney, near Victoria, and Wheeler died there in 1945. (excerpted from biography written by grandson J.O. Wheeler, reprinted in journal of the Canadian Institute of Surveying, spring 1988). Additional biographical information & photograph available at Peakfinder website: http://www.peakfinder.com (March 2001). See also Canadian Alpine Journal, vol VI, 1916, p.187.

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