"The Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad wants, if the Geographic Board of Canada consents, to name a great Alp in the Rockies after me - Sir Ryder Mountain and Haggard Glacier, a great and unusual compliment..." wrote the British novelist Henry Ryder Haggard (1856-1925) during his train trip from Prince Rupert to Edmonton in July 1916. "I saw it. It is a wonder and magnificent Alp, some ten thousand feet high and measuring many miles around its base. Snow lies on its summit even in summer and it has deep, ripped glaciers and fir-clad ravines upon its flanks, while the crest has some resemblance to a Lion." The Geographic Board consented, although the name is spelled "Rider", and the mountain is just over eight thousand feet high. Haggard, the author of adventure stories for boys ("She", "King Solomon's Mine") was on a final leg of his pubic career as an advocate of "national regeneration through agriculture." He was sent by the Royal Colonial Institute to investigate prospects for settling war veterans on plots of land in South Africa, Australia and Canada. He arrived in Victoria in June 1916, finding himself an extremely popular figure. (Haggard, Henry Rider, Days of My Life) (excerpt from "British Columbia place names in the vicinity of Mount Robson", by James L. Swanson, Fraser-Fort George Museum Society, 1987.) -courtesy BCGNIS