FEBRUARY 2002 NEWSLETTER

Peakfinder Updates

Photographs of the mountains of the Canadian Rockies are becoming an important part of the website. A few more have been added during the past month and as well efforts were made to adjust the brightness level of the more that 600 currently available on the site.

A few users have emailed photos of their own "Mystery Mountains."  Please continue to forward them and we'll try to help you with their identification.

Teachers are beginning to use the website and there is now a special section that provides ideas as to how educators can use the peaks of the Canadian Rockies to connect to curriculum content and various projects related to the mountains. More will be developed in this section over the next few months.

I will be making two presentations at the Greater Edmonton Teachers Convention at the end of February. Entitled "Connecting Curriculum to the Canadian Rockies," they will take the form of a trip through the mountains, stopping to look at a number of peaks and discussing historical and other connections that may be made use of in classroom situations.

Please note that all of the previous newsletters have been archived and are available on the site. If you're interested in other esoteric lists, unusual mountain names, etc. look through the earlier issues. 


February's Unusual Canadian Rockies Name

CHILDEAR MOUNTAIN
A contraction of the words "child" and "year," this was the winning entry in a contest for elementary school children to commemorate the International Year of the Child in 1979. The name was submitted by the 1979 Grade 4 class of Youngstown School, Youngstown, Alberta.

Enter "Childear Mountain" in the Finding Peaks search box to learn more about this mountain. 

Look who's honoured in the Canadian Rockies

O'BEIRNE MOUNTAIN

Eugene Francis O'Beirne travelled across western Canada with Reverend John McDougall and later joined the party led by Viscount Milton, an English nobleman, and Walter Cheadle in 1863. They were on a "pleasure trip across Canada" which included traversing the uncharted Yellowhead Pass.

They made the mistake of inviting Mr. O'Beirne to join them while they were in Fort Edmonton. It is not clear why Viscount Milton and Cheadle agreed to take him as he had acquired such a reputation as a sponger and general pest that the residents of Fort Edmonton were so pleased to be rid of him that they provided O'Beirne with a saddle and a horse. He certainly did provide for some entertaining anecdotes in Cheadle's journal which was later published in book form.

Although a jovial and entertaining character at times, Mr. O'Beirne appears to have been a less than desirable hitch-hiker. He was described as very lazy, accident prone, and a chronic complainer during the difficult trip. For example, while building a raft to cross the Athabasca River, Milton noticed that Cheadle not only consistently chose the small end of any logs that had to be carried, but, "After the first few steps O'Beirne began to utter the most awful groans, and cried out, continually, 'Oh, Dear! Oh, Dear! this is most painful -it's cutting my shoulder in two -not so fast, my lord. Gently, gently. Steady, my lord, steady; I must stop. I'm carrying all the weight myself...And then with a loud 'Oh!' and no further warning, he let his end of the tree down with a run, jarring his unhappy partner most dreadfully." All this was despite the fact that O'Beirne was a bigger man. Cheadle later commented, "I never saw such an old woman in my life or such a nuisance."
For information about O'Beirne Mountain enter the name in the Finding Peaks search box on the main page.
February's Esoteric List

MOUNTAINS ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN BANFF AND YOHO NATIONAL PARKS
Mount Balfour, Mount Bosworth, Collier Peak, Mount Daly, Divide Mountain, Mount Hungabee, Mount Lefroy, Lilliput Mountain, Mount Olive, Pope's Peak, Ringrose Peak, Mount Victoria

For information regarding any of these peaks enter the name in the "Finding Peaks" section on the front page.

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