Wells Gray Provincial Park - History

History

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Wells Gray area was a valued hunting ground to the Secwepemc (Shuswap), Tsilhqot'in (Chilcotin) and Canim Lake aboriginal groups. This resulted in a conflict about 1875 over access to caribou herds. Geographic names like “Battle Mountain”, “Fight Lake”, “Battle Creek” and "Indian Valley" recall this period.

The Overlanders expedition to the Cariboo goldfields rafted down the North Thompson River in 1862. When they arrived at the mouth of the Clearwater River, they noted its distinct clarity compared to the muddy North Thompson and named it Clear Water. In 1863, the first tourists, Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle, traveled through the North Thompson Valley and solidified the Clearwater River name by publishing it in their journal, The Northwest Passage by Land (London, 1865).

Between 1872 and 1881, about 20 survey parties fanned out across British Columbia trying to find the best route for the Canadian Pacific Railway between Yellowhead Pass in the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast. Three survey parties visited what is now Wells Gray Park. In 1873, Marcus Smith, searching for the ideal route to Bute Inlet, visited Hobson Lake and Mahood Lake. In 1874, the railway dispatched a survey party to explore the headwaters of the Clearwater River, under the leadership of E.W. Jarvis. The altitude of the pass was calculated at 2,130 m (6,988 ft) (actually only 1,800 m (5,906 ft)) and the route skirted an immense glacier before descending to the Raush River, a tributary of the Fraser River — “clearly impracticable for a railway line”. When the more southern Kicking Horse Pass was chosen instead in 1881, all the meticulously examined routes in what is now Wells Gray Park were abandoned. Only three place names in the park recognize those 10 wasted years of surveys: Murtle River & Lake, Mahood River & Lake, and Marcus Falls.

Helmcken Falls was discovered in 1913 by Robert Lee, a land surveyor working for the British Columbia government. He was so impressed with the waterfall that he wrote a letter from his remote camp to Sir Richard McBride, Premier of British Columbia, requesting that the falls be named "McBride Falls". Three weeks later, Lee received a reply from the Premier stating that the waterfall was instead to be called Helmcken Falls. This name honoured John Sebastian Helmcken, a physician with the Hudson's Bay Company who arrived in Victoria in 1850. He helped bring British Columbia into Canadian Confederation in 1871. Dr. Helmcken died in 1920 at the age of 95, but never actually saw the falls himself.

The first homesteaders in what is now Wells Gray Park were John Ray in 1911 at The Horseshoe and Michael Majerus in 1912 on the Murtle River near Dawson Falls. Both cleared land, built cabins and established isolated lifestyles far from other people. Other settlers who arrived between 1918 and 1925 were the Ludtke family, Lewis Rupell, Pete McDougal, Jack Zellers, Dave Anderson, Alex Fage and Herman Ordschig.

On July 16, 1926, the entire Clearwater Valley between First Canyon and the Murtle River was destroyed by a forest fire. It started from a lightning strike west of the Clearwater River, smouldered for several weeks, then was fanned by winds and moved rapidly north through the homesteads. The Ludtke family immersed themselves in Battle Creek for 8 hours, dampening some blankets to cover their heads, and their livestock and even wild animals joined them for protection. The Rupell cabin was the only one that did not burn. The fire crossed the Murtle River and burned part way up Kilpill Mountain. After its initial rampage, it burned slowly in the marshes of the Murtle Plateau until mid-August, when it was finally extinguished by a heavy rain. Over 125,000 acres (510 km2) of the Clearwater Valley were burned and most settlers lost almost everything they owned. However, there was not a single human fatality.

Soon after the discovery of Helmcken Falls, a park was suggested to preserve the waterfall. Nothing happened, so in 1925 the B.C. Auto Club started a campaign to establish a park around the falls. The Minister of Lands, Duff Pattullo, was not interested and rebuffed the club by stating that the falls were there and could not get away, so why bother setting up a park. In the mid-1930s, there were more recommendations for a park at Helmcken Falls. Finally the government began to listen, mostly because a new Minister of Lands, Arthur Wellesley Gray, was interested in parks and recognized the growing need to preserve special places in British Columbia. In 1938, Gray and his Chief Forester, Ernest Manning, created Tweedsmuir Provincial Park in the Coast Mountains near Bella Coola and Hamber Provincial Park in the Rocky Mountains. In 1939, a forest ranger near Clearwater, Bill Noble, recommended a park and on November 28, 1939, Gray passed an Order-in-Council creating a huge park around most of the drainage basin of the Clearwater River. He named the park for himself (Wells was his nickname). In 1941, he and Manning were working on establishing a new park in British Columbia's Cascade Mountains when Manning was killed in a plane crash and that park was named E.C. Manning Provincial Park. Tourists and hikers of the 21st century owe much to the vision of Gray and Manning.