by Ray Dick
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| Corporal Brian Baldwin was part of a five-member Canadian Forces team that placed commemorative plaques on five mountain peaks named after Canadian soldiers who earned the Victoria Cross, the Commonwealth’s highest award for bravery. |
A five-member Canadian Forces team with the millennium in mind has bolted a lasting tribute to the heroism of five soldiers known to the area on top of the five mountains that are named after them in Jasper National Park.
Stainless steel plaques have been erected describing the deeds of each of the five men who have mountains named after them in the Victoria Cross Range.
“We discovered the existence of the mountains by accident about two years ago,” said Corporal Brian Baldwin, while he and Cpl. Bill Seifried were scaling peaks in the area on their own time. “We were disturbed that we didn’t know before about those mountains named after Victoria Cross winners.”
Baldwin decided then and there to do something to increase public awareness of Mounts Zengel, Kinross, Kerr, McKean and Pattison. He appealed for support from the National Defence Millennium Control Office. “They liked the idea,” said Baldwin and the Victoria Cross Mountain Range Millennium Project was officially launched.
With $4,200 from the millennium office, several corporate sponsors and a “considerable amount of cash from our own pockets”, Baldwin says, “we were able to mount a viable mountaineering expedition that saw team members representing all three branches of the service trek through demanding terrain and place commemorative plaques on each of the five Victoria Cross mountains.” He and Seifried, as lead climbers, led the way on the Victoria Cross Range expedition that also included Leading Seaman Caroline LeBlanc, Corporal Tim Hill and Captain Scott Lundy.
“The weather was horrific,” said Baldwin in summing up the completion of the mountain trek Aug. 24 when the team led by Seifried placed the final commemorative plaque atop Mount Pattison which is 2,316 metres above sea level. The highest of the five mountains is Mount McKean at 2,743 metres.
“This was the final task after spending a gruelling eight days of unusually poor weather in the heights of the Victoria Cross Range traverse. Most activities, including all basic necessities such as sleeping and eating, were conducted under extreme conditions….On one late afternoon the team braved 60 km/h winds and -20 degree temperatures on the south summit of Mount Zengel.”
The 61/4 by 41/4-inch plaques, listing the name of the mountain, its height in metres and a brief description of the Victoria Cross winner, are attached with mountaineering bolts to prominent rock features near the summits of the mountains.
Mount Kerr, named after John Chipman Kerr who was awarded the Victoria Cross during the battle of the Somme, has an extra inscription. His biography reads: “War was declared while John and his brother Roland were homesteading in Spirit River, Alta. Immediately they set out for Edmonton, leaving only a single note tacked to the door of their humble shed. It read: ‘War is Hell, but what is homesteading.’” He survived the war, and died in Port Moody, B.C., in 1963.
Mount Pattison was named for John George Pattison who enlisted in 1916 at Calgary and won his Victoria Cross during the battle of Vimy Ridge. He was killed two months later during an attack on the generating station at Lievin, near Lens. Mount Zengel gets its name from Raphael Louis Zengel, a prairie farmer who won his Victoria Cross during the fighting near Amiens in 1918. He died in 1977 at Rocky Mountain House, Alta.
The other two mountains are named after Cecil John Kinross and George Burdon McKean. Kinross, a farmer from Lougheed, Alta., was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the attack on Passchendaele in October of 1917. He died in Lougheed in 1957. McKean got his Victoria Cross for actions with the 14th Canadian Infantry Battalion near Vimy Ridge. He survived the war, but died in England in 1926 when struck by pieces from a broken circular saw in a sawmill he had acquired.
Baldwin, in announcing completion of the mountain expedition phase, said “That was the fun part.” He has bigger plans—to include rocks gathered from the mountains in a renovation or replacement of the cenotaph at the Legion’s Jasper Branch and to create a roadside attraction to inform travellers and tourists of the historic mountain range. He is looking for more sponsors, especially the Legion, to finish his project, and he is optimistic that help will be forthcoming.
“After all,” said Baldwin, “the expedition received National Defence approval and funding, attracted some private sponsors and met all its objectives. It will take more work, but I like our chances.”
His plans are being studied by the Legion at Dominion Command, the Alberta–Northwest Territories Command and Jasper Branch. The proposals were forwarded to the Sub-Executive committee with a recommendation for endorsement.
What the team wants to do is incorporate the rocks they retrieved from the mountains in a new war memorial cenotaph being built by Jasper Branch. “We have the rocks, several from each of the mountains,” said Baldwin. “While they are not large or spectacular in nature, they do make for a unique opportunity to add a certain amount of character to any project.” Larger rocks would have been considered, he added, “but my pack already weighed 85 pounds without any rocks.”
The team has one more iron in the fire—construction of a roadside attraction along one of the highways that snakes through the park and at a spot where the Victoria Cross Range is clearly visible. It “would feature a detailed geographical explanation of the geography and significance of the Victoria Cross Range as well as a description of the team’s project.”
Baldwin said the team will continue an aggressive approach to attract corporate sponsorship to help offset the cost of the roadside attraction, but that at some point it would need the assistance of the federal government.
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