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5240 DOMANO BLVD |
British Columbia Tourism Region : Cariboo Chilcotin Coast
Description From Owner:
Yellowhead Pass
- Committee Punch Bowl is on the old trail by which the fur-company brigades once travelled across the Rockies.
- Governor Simpson of the HBC tells how he named the lake when he passed that way in 1824:
- At the very top of the pass or height of Land is a small circular Lake or Basin of water which empties itself in opposite directions and may be said to be the source of the Columbia & Athabasca Rivers
- as it bestows its favors on both these prodigious Streams ...
- That this basin should send its Waters to each side of the Continent and give birth to two of the principal Rivers in North America is no less strange than true both the Dr. [John McLoughlin] &
- myself having examined the currents flowing from it East & West and the circumstance appearing remarkable I thought it should be honored by a distinguishing title and it was forthwith named the 'Committee's Punch Bowl.
- The 'committee' was presumably the managing committee of the HBC.
- According to one account, the officers in charge of HBC parties customarily served their men with punch when they reached the top of the Great Divide here.
- Yellowhead Pass & Lake - Both are named after Pierre Bostonais, nicknamed Téte Jaune ('Yellowhead'), who in 1820 guided one of the first HBC parties to penetrate west of the Rockies. (See Téte Jaune Cache.)
- In the years that followed, the pass was frequently referred to as the Leather Pass since the HBC posts in New Caledonia used this route to bring in most of their leather, as much as forty packs of dressed moose skins annually.
- Leather was needed in large quantities since the rough terrain of the country required as many as eight pairs of moccasins per man for a single expedition through the mountains. The Yellowhead or Leather Pass was also known as Caledonian Valley.
- Yellowhead Lake was originally known as Buffalo Dung Lake.
- With permission from G.P.V and Helen B. Akrigg 1997 British Columbia Place Names. UBC Press.
Address of this page: http://bc.ruralroutes.com/CommitteePunchBowl