VALEMOUNT—

The Friends of Valemount have begun the process to name another mountain within the Premier Range and few could have guessed what a strange connection they would discover.

It turns out the mountain they would like to name after the late Prime Minister, John G. Diefenbaker, is only a few kilometres from the site of the Canoe River Train Wreck, where a northbound passenger train collided with a southbound troop train. The November 1950 train wreck killed 21 men, and a dispatcher working in Red Pass was charged with manslaughter. That man appealed to Diefenbaker to defend him. Diefenbaker’s dying wife, Edna, insisted that he take the case and, at great personal expense and with exceptional flourish, he managed to clear the telegraph operator of manslaughter.

Rick Publicover of the Friends of Valemount said that they chose to honour Diefenbaker as he was one of the longest sitting parliamentarians and a recent Prime Minister who doesn’t have a mountain named after him. The organization did all this without knowing his role in the court case following the Canoe River Train Wreck.

Peaks in the Premier Range were set aside in the 1920s to honour Prime Ministers (then often known as premiers).

The mountain in question is easy to identify when travelling south on Highway 16 from Valemount. Its base is about 12 kilometers south of town on Highway 5, and it is west across Highway 16 from Canoe Mountain and south of Canoe River. The mountain shows two rectangular clear cuts at its base facing the highway.

The elevation of the proposed Mount Diefenbaker is 8560 feet (2610 meters), about 100 feet less than Mount Pierre Elliot Trudeau (which will be officially named this summer).

While initial mapping work for the application began about nine months ago, Publicover said that the official application is still underway.

Diefenbaker was born in 1895, elected to the House of Commons in 1940 and was elected 13 times before his death in 1979. He served as Prime Minister from 1957 until 1963.

Currently the mountain is nameless, though heli-ski operators from Canadian Mountain Holidays refer to the top as Crystal Peak for its crystal shape.

The Friends of Valemount intend on putting a low-key trail from the highway up to the alpine, and local hiker Art Carson is working on a route.

Carson has been up the mountain twice in the summertime and said that getting up into the alpine involves a long bushwhack through thick forest. At the top, he said there is a long and pleasant ridge walk with some excellent views.

Shawn Pelletier, head of the Power Boarders Backcountry Association, has spent quite a bit of time putting in a snowmobile trail around the backside of the mountain. Pelletier isn’t keen on naming the mountain. His association has the right to use the mountain for snowmobile-assisted snowboarding in the wintertime.

“We don’t want a million people going up there,” he said. “That is our back way into Allan Creek from town.”

Pelletier said that he tries to go up there every year. “We haven’t actually snowboarded on it quite yet,” he said. “It takes a while to get up there.”

Publicover said that the Friends of Valemount would likely continue to find peaks for other deceased Prime Ministers. Currently, Sir Robert Borden and Diefenbaker are the only deceased Prime Ministers who don’t have mountains named in their honour. 

Diefenbaker has been honoured elsewhere in Canada. A large artificial lake in southern Saskatchewan, created thanks to a massive dam project commissioned during Diefenbaker’s time in office, was later named in his honour.

There is no indication of how long the application to name the peak will take. The effort to name a peak after Pierre Trudeau lasted more than three years before approval was granted.