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.

With their destination behind them — the Lions — and on a hiking trail many take today, these men were enjoying the trails around Cypress Mountain.

Climbing the Lions in an "old suit and pair of shoes that were no longer decent enough for ordinary wear," and being the first recorded climber of the East Lion gives some clue as to the contents of this article.

Written by John Latta, it describes a six-day expedition in 1905 of him and his brothers William and Robert as they decided to climb the Lions. They were all aged around twenty and had no experience, making them either brave or foolhardy — or both. They were not the first known climbers of the Western Lion, but they were recorded as the first to climb the Eastern Lion.