It seems that Captain Arthur Brisco, in searching for adventure in western British North America, was also in the right place at the right time to have a mountain range named after him.
Sabine was “the artful dodger of the British scientific establishment. Bright, energetic, shrewd, he could have been the very model of Gilbert and Sullivan’s modern major general.”23
Shortly after his election to public office in 1863, Dr Isaac Tobey joined a group of prospectors hoping to confirm rumours of gold in the upper Kootenay and headwaters of the Columbia River. Dr Tobey, at least, was among a group that panned what became known as Toby’s Creek.
Other names: ?Akakus1
“I have just traded $100s worth of the gold round here by the Finley’s, who took out $500 since we came up (August or September early). There are not any whites up here yet, but parties have already commenced preparing ferries on the rivers to the Kootenais in expectation of a rush next season. The gold is coarse and looks well.”7
There is an unsolved mystery in the naming of Mount Ethelbert. According to the story, “Mt Ethelbert [was] named by Captain Armstrong for the first nun to ascend the river. She died on board the Captain’s boat, Ptarmigan, and was buried as Sister Ethelbert.”1 …I have found absolutely no evidence to support this story.
Sister Ethelbert, “having undertaken the rough trip to Kootenay … fell sick on the way… and our dear Sister was called home to God.”24
The local newspaper noted that, “if there is a more graceful, happy or cheerful couple [than Sam and Helen Brewer] on the crust of this old earth they have not been heard from,” and that, “there is sunshine when they are around.”16
Now some seventy-three years old, Slade continued to work … “tossing boulders out of icy, knee-deep water” and preferring to “wrestle with fifty pound boulders” compared to some of the easier tasks of working a [mining] claim.16
Other Names: Windermere Mountain, Morigeau Mountain
It is said that the first shipment of ore from the Windermere Valley was sent from the mountain to the smelter in Swansea, Wales. There is some truth to the story, however it’s also somewhat more complicated than that.
The fortunes of Thomas Starbird took a sharp turn in Autumn 1913, when Mountain Valley Ranch was destroyed in a fire with all of its contents. There was “very little” insurance.
In The Windermere 