Wells Gray Provincial Park is a large wilderness park located in east-central British Columbia, Canada. The park protects most of the southern, and highest, regions of the Cariboo Mountains and covers 5,415 square kilometres (541,516 hectares or 1.3 million acres). It is British Columbia's fifth largest provincial park, after Tweedsmuir, Tatshenshini, Spatsizi and Northern Rocky Mountains.Neave, Roland (2023). Exploring Wells Gray Park, 7th edition. Wells Gray Tours, Kamloops, BC. .Goward, Trevor and Hickson, Cathie (1995). Nature Wells Gray, 2nd edition. Lone Pine Publishing, Edmonton, AB. .
Topography The boundaries of Wells Gray Park encompass 60 percent of the drainage basin of the Clearwater River, and most water that originates in the park flows into this river. The northern two-thirds of the park is extremely rugged with relief ranging from Clearwater Lake at an elevation of to at Mount Lyons on the northern park boundary, west of Mount Pierrway. These summits are part of the Cariboo Mountains, and most of the east boundary of the park follows the mountain divide between drainage into the North Thompson River and into the Clearwater River.
Individual mountain groups dominate the topography of the northern park region and are separated by deep glacial valleys, several of which contain large lakes such as Clearwater, Azure and Hobson. The ruggedness of its features has ensured that northern Wells Gray remains little known except to the hardiest of backpackers.Hickson, Cathie with Hollinger, Jason (2014). Wells Gray Rocks. Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, BC.
The southern third of Wells Gray Park is traversed by the Clearwater Valley Road, although large areas are accessible only by trail. The dominant topography features volcanic plateaus, lava flows and deep canyons which are crowned by several peaks over high. The waterfalls, for which Wells Gray is famous, usually result from the interaction of volcanic eruptions and glacial activity. The best known is Helmcken Falls, the fourth highest waterfall in Canada, which plunges over the edge of one of these volcanic plateaus.
Highest mountains The eight highest mountains in Wells Gray Park are:
1) Mount Lyons, 2946 m. The first recorded ascent was made by Bill McKenzie and Roger Wallis on August 18, 2005. It is named after Chess Lyons, Wells Gray Park surveyor in 1940, naturalist, author, photographer, and explorer.
2) Mount Goodall, 2930 m. The mountain consists of 11 distinct summits and extends for nearly 8 km in a northwest to southeast direction. On the northeast side, an unbreached wall of rock and ice rises between 400 m and 1,300 m from the Goodall Glacier. The first ascent was achieved on August 21, 2006, by Roger Wallis, Don Chiasson, and Jim Lundy. They established its height, only 16 m lower than Mount Lyons. As of 2022, only four of Goodall's 11 summits have been conquered. Mount Goodall is one of six peaks in this area named in 1966 in honor of Canadian soldiers from the Quesnel area who were killed in action during World War II; it is named after Trooper Walter Henry Goodall, age 24.
3) Garnet Peak, 2876 m. This is a prominent landmark from many viewpoints in southern Wells Gray Park. It is located north of Azure Lake. The first ascent was by Hugh Neave, Tor Schmid and Barbara Hargreaves on August 29, 1974. It was long believed to be the park's highest mountain until expeditions to the north boundary found the above two peaks were higher.
4) Black Cone, 2861 m. This is the second highest summit of the Goodall group and has been unofficially called "The Black Cone". Its first ascent was on July 30, 2012, by Paul Geddes, Norm Greene, and Bill McKenzie.
5) Mount Pierrway, 2854 m. It was first climbed in 1969 by Art Maki and Art Wilder. The second ascent was in 1987 and the third in 2005. This honors another World War II casualty, Private Alfred Pierrway, age 22.
6) "Unnamed Peak, 2847 m, 3.7 km WSW of Mount Pierrway". It is located on the north park boundary near Mount Lyons. As of 2022, there is no record of this peak being climbed, therefore it is Wells Gray Park's highest unclimbed mountain.
7) Mount Hugh Neave, 2829 m. Located east of Hobson Lake and north of Garnet Peak. Hugh Neave, first to summit Garnet Peak, and Peter Cowan attempted to climb it in 1972 via Hobson Glacier to the east, but were forced to turn back by difficult terrain. It was named after Hugh Neave after his death in 1988. Two expeditions in the 1990s, two in 2015, and one in 2017 failed to reach the summit. The first successful ascent was on August 27, 2019, by JF Labranche and Travis Goodridge.
8) "Unnamed Peak, 2797 m, 3.1 km SE of Mount Beaman".
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 Indigenous People. This resulted in a conflict around 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).
Surveying for the Canadian Pacific Railway 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 best 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, but the route was described as "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 years of surveys: Murtle River & Lake, Mahood River & Lake, and Marcus Falls.
Helmcken 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.
Homesteaders The first homesteaders in what is now Wells Gray Park were John Ray in 1911 at The Horseshoe, who was given land by the Canim Lake Band, 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.
1926 Clearwater Valley fire 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 of the Clearwater Valley were burned and most settlers lost almost everything they owned. However, there was not a single human fatality.
Establishing a park Soon after Lee's 1913 discovery of Helmcken Falls, a park was suggested to preserve the waterfall. Eventually 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, stating that there were no benefits to protecting waterfalls which "wouldn't go away". 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, an Order-in-Council was approved, creating a huge park around most of the drainage basin of the Clearwater River. The park was named for Gray (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; that park ended up being named E.C. Manning Provincial Park.
In 1940, just after the park was created, Chess Lyons (namesake of Mount Lyons) and his assistant, Huntley Campbell (namesake of Mount Huntley/Huntley Col) thoroughly surveyed the park and produced a detailed report with photos. Lyons and Campbell are responsible for about a quarter of its current place names, all carefully researched to remember settlers, prospectors, explorers, forest rangers, and other people who had lived and worked in the Clearwater Valley. The original park included the Pendleton Lakes in the west but not Trophy Mountain or the Flourmill Volcanoes. In 1986, the Pendleton Lakes were eliminated from the park while the later two areas were added to the park.
In 2018 Sarlacc's Pit cave was discovered in the park. Notable for its size, the entrance pit measures some 100m x 60m, and a 61m waterfall on the pit wall is fed by snowpack and glacier meltwater. This stream emerges 2 km east and flows into Ovis Creek.
Clearwater River dams
The disastrous Fraser River flood of 1948 nearly changed the Clearwater River and Wells Gray Park. In November 1947, prior to the flood, the Federal Minister of Public Works had proposed the creation of a joint federal-provincial committee to study the Fraser River's water resources. The flood in the following spring made this project more urgent, and in late 1948 the Dominion-Provincial Board Fraser River Basin was established to report on power generation, fisheries, flood control, water supply and recreation. Between 1949 and 1954, the committee of ten collected data and filled in the gaps in other government studies. No report was produced, but in 1953, 12 detailed maps of the Clearwater River between Hemp Creek and the North Thompson River were published. These had a scale of 1 inch to 500 feet, and a contour interval of 20 feet. As of 2023, these sheets are still the most detailed and accurate topographic maps available of the lower Clearwater, although they are out-of-date regarding human developments.