F205-60-039 - "Conquerors of the Eastern Lion. 1908"

This photo is described as “Conquerors of the Eastern Lion” in 1908. This party may have reached the summit, but they were not the first as it was first scaled by John Latta and his two brothers in 1903.

The concept of "conquering" mountains is now understood to be a uniquely colonial attitude. A part of our interconnected world, mountains are not there to be "overcome" as in the definition of conquering. In addition, the settlers who claimed "first ascent" of a mountain were in fact claiming the first recorded ascent under the settler construct of "peak bagging". Being on the territorial lands of Indigenous Nations, wherever they were in BC, those settlers were quite possibly following in the footsteps of many Indigenous individuals who were hunting, gathering or traversing the mountains for other reasons.

• Climbing

• image

Fonds 205

• The Lions/The Sisters

Charles Chapman photography collection