Retelling, reenacting BC mountaineering history

The Final Spire: ‘Mystery Mountain’ Mania in the 1930s
by Trevor Marc Hughes

Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2025
$24.95 / 9781553807223

Expedition to Mystery Mountain: Adventures of a Bushwhacking Knickerbocker-Wearing Woman
by Susanna Oreskovic

Montreal: Walnut Tree Press, 2021
$24.95 / 9780993918711

Reviewed by Glenn Woodsworth

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Trevor Marc Hughes’ 2023 book Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925 described the successful expedition to the summit of Canada’s highest peak, Mount Logan. In his new book, The Final Spire, he describes the decade-long history of attempts to climb the highest mountain entirely within British Columbia, Mount Waddington.

Until the mid-1920s, Mount Robson was thought by most people and mountaineers to be the highest summit wholly within British Columbia. Only Indigenous people and a few surveyors, geologists and trappers knew or suspected that peaks to rival the Rockies existed in the Coast Mountains in the southwest corner of the province. Most of the big peaks in the Coast Mountains (or Coast Range, as some people call these ranges) are not visible from the water or from roads in the interior. By contrast, many of the great peaks in the Rockies are highly visible from main highways.

In 1925, well-known Vancouver mountaineers Don and Phyllis Munday saw high and unvisited summits in the Coast Mountains from the summit of Mount Arrowsmith on Vancouver Island. Over the next nine years the Mundays made many trips into the Waddington area, often accompanied by friends or family and climbed many secondary peaks in the range. Their first problem was to find the peaks (not on any maps of the day) and to decide on the best way to reach them. They first tried the approach up the Homathko River from the head of Bute Inlet but abandoned that route the next and succeeding years in favour of access by the Franklin River at the head of Bute Inlet. They called the highest summit in the range “Mystery Mountain” and used that name until it was officially named Mount Waddington in 1928.

Don reported on each of these trips in articles in various alpine journals; these articles were reworked and expanded into Don’s book The Unknown Mountain, London, 1948. Trevor Hughes’ retelling of these trips takes up about a third of The Final Spire and draws heavily on Don’s book, supplemented by later published interviews with Phyllis. Hughes is a better writer than was Don, and this retelling is competently done. Hughes amplifies Don’s rather dry accounts with material that gives a more complete picture of the difficulties they faced and the reactions of the Vancouver mountaineering community.

In 1928, Don and Phyl and Don’s brother Bert reached the northwest summit of Waddington, maybe 30 metres lower than the main peak. Phyl’s photo taken from the northwest summit, reproduced on the cover of the book, shows why they couldn’t continue to the main summit. This was as close to the summit as they were to get. They made more trips to the region and repeated their climb of the northwest summit in 1933. But Hughes (and others, including me) think that they knew that they simply weren’t good enough climbers to reach the highest summit. That summit would have to wait for a stronger party. Don and Phyl made their last journey to the range in 1934 and then turned their attention to other high (and easier) unclimbed summits in the Coast Mountains.

The central section of the book is given to the attempt on the main summit by Winnipeg mountaineers Roger and Ferris Neave, both strong rock climbers, together with Campbell Secord and the less experienced Arthur Davidson, in 1934. Making use of an unpublished diary kept by Ferris and supplemented with interviews with both Neaves, Hughes gives us a full account of this under-appreciated expedition. The group pioneered what was to become the standard approach to the summit tower. Then Neaves and Secord made a strong attempt on the northeast face, retreating because of bad weather and snow conditions about 150 metres from the summit. Given better conditions it is possible that they might have found an easier route (today’s usual route) on the summit tower. Trevor Hughes’ research is a good and useful contribution to the mountaineering literature of the Waddington Range.

By this time articles with titles such as “Can Mt. Waddington Be Climbed?” were appearing in newspapers and mountaineering journals in several countries. Strong American and Canadian parties attempted the mountain without success. Finally, in 1936 Fritz Weissner and William (Bill) House succeeded on the southwest face where so many parties had failed. Weissner, the leader, was probably the finest North American mountaineer of his day, and House was no slouch, either.

According to Hughes, The Final Spire was intended to be the story of the Neave-Secord expedition. But he wisely recognized that the book would not really work without extensive background information, thus the very long sections on the Mundays and others. The book is filled out with other material, including accounts of the first ascent of the Matterhorn, a discussion of the first fatality on Mount Waddington by Vancouver climber Alec Dalgleish in 1934, and reflection on musings by John Muir and John Ruskin.

Hughes is not a mountaineer. Perhaps that was an advantage in writing this book, because he avoids getting bogged down in technical details. I noticed a few errors and over-emphasis of some minor articles, but these will not bother most readers. The selection of photos is good and includes some I had not seen before. Two of the three maps are Don Munday’s sketch maps, reproduced from mountaineering journals. A modern overview map of southwest B.C. from Vancouver Island to Tatla Lake and showing the various routes taken by the various parties would have been very helpful, as would a short non-technical appendix on technical terms such as “icefall.” But as it is, this is a well-written and readable account that should be of interest to mountaineers and the broader public.

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Trevor Marc Hughes’ The Final Spire, is a history of the ascent of Mount Waddington, whereas Susanna Oreskovic’s Expedition to Mystery Mountain is a personal account of a 2018 reenactment of one of Don and Phyl Munday’s early expeditions to the area. Reenactments of famous climbs have been done in many places. In B.C., such re-creations include Mount Garibaldi near Vancouver and Bugaboo Spire northwest of Invermere. The reenactment of the Munday’s 1926 attempt on Mount Waddington (called “Mystery Mountain” by them) would be a much more serious undertaking.

The venture was sponsored the Canadian EH Society, a group dedicated to “extreme adventure done old school.” Phyllis Munday was the only woman on the 1926 expedition, and Susanna Oreskovic was chosen to represent Phyl on this 2018 expedition. The group made much of their own replica gear. But the trip was plagued with bad planning, equipment failures, bad bush, minor injuries, and discord within the group. After three weeks, they abandoned the attempt and called for a helicopter to return them to a spot for a pickup by water taxi.

Oreskovic describes this expedition clearly and candidly, not glossing over mistakes and personality conflicts. But the book is more than just a description of an epic bushwhack: it is also the story of the author’s inner journey. Oreskovic is well aware that she followed in Phyl Munday’s steps. Phyl was the pre-eminent woman mountaineer in Canada in the first half of the twentieth century, and probably the stronger climber and more reflective of the two Mundays. For much of the expedition Oreskovic struggled to live up to the Phyl Munday reputation. One of her aims in this book is “to honour the women who came before me and inspire those who will come after.” She succeeds in this aim.

The photos, mostly taken by the author, including some taken on a 1921 Kodak camera, are fine and complement the text description of the difficulties the party faced. Few Canadian mountaineering books are written by women. Oreskovic’s book is a complement to The Final Spire, one told, for a change, from a woman’s point of view.

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Glenn Woodsworth has spent 65 years climbing and exploring Coast Mountains of western B.C., including the Waddington Range, where he has a dozen first ascents to his credit. He is a past president and honorary member of the B.C. Mountaineering Club and for some years was a member of the Geographical Names Board of Canada. A geologist by profession, Glenn worked mainly on deciphering the geological history of western British Columbia, including researching how the Waddington Range came to be. [Editor’s Note: A fourth edition of Hot Springs of Western Canada: A Complete Guide (4^th edition) was published in 2023, and reviewed here. Glenn Woodsworth has reviewed books by John Baldwin, David Crerar, Harry Crerar, and Bill Maurer and Stephen Hui for The British Columbia Review.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

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