Mount Gauthier
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: Head of Horsetail Creek in Monkman Provincial Park, S of Tumbler Ridge (municipality), Peace River Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 54°38'10"N, 121°16'05"W at the approximate centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 93I/11
Origin Notes and History:

Adopted 30 October 1981 on 93I/11, as recommended by ret'd BC Surveyor-General, G.S. Andrews.

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

"....My recommendation that a prominent mountain in the Monkman Pass vicinity be named for St. Pierre Gauthier (c1850 - c1930), in deference to credible claims that he was the actual discoverer of Monkman Pass. I can offer the following information:
1. St. Pierre Gauthier, of French-Cree ancestry, was probably born at Lac Ste Anne Mission, west of Edmonton. He and others came to the Grande Prairie region about 1900. He and Narcis Belcourt were reputed the first to settle at Kelly Lake, before 1920.
2. During my sojourn at Kelly Lake as the first school teacher (1923-25), Gauthier was a highly regarded old-timer. He was reputed an expert trail locator, with a skilled eye for topography. He spoke some English but was otherwise illiterate.
3. I distinctly remember the local allegation that Gauthier was the real discoverer of Monkman Pass, and that he had led Alex Monkman to it. Monkman, being literate and well known among 'white' people, got the credit.
4. George Hamelin (Hambler), one of my 'star' pupils, now living in Dawson Creek, confirmed recently that Gauthier "...was the real discoverer of Monkman Pass" (see field-notes for 10-11 August 1981 by Mike Robinson, Advisor, Social Affairs and Research, Corporate Office, Petro Canada, Calgary).
5. I have a 23 January 1931 letter from Jim Young, former trader at Kelly Lake, saying that St. Pierre Gauthier had recently died. Someone else had told me it was from fatal effects of burning his feet at a winter campfire. " (1981 correspondence from G.S. Andrews, Surveyor General of British Columbia, ret'd, file M.2.61)

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