Peak Finder

Photo: Looking northwest to Mount Domke, Mount Secord, and Mount Erris (courtesy Allan Schierman)

Mount Secord

  • 2667 m (8,750ft)
  • Naming History
49.8544N -114.663W
Located on the continental divide at the head of North Racehorse Creek and the head of Alexandra Creek

Range: High Rock
Province: Alberta/BC
Headwater: Oldman/Kootenay
Year Named: 1981
Named for: Secord, Richard (Mr. Secord was a prominent Edmonton pioneer.)

Richard Secord was born in 1860 in Ontario, where he received his elementary schooling and attended the Brantford Collegiate Institute. His family was related through marriage to Laura Secord. Secord left for the west in the spring of 1881, and arrived in Edmonton in September of the same year. He took on a number of jobs, including working on the crew that surveyed the river lots of the Edmonton settlement in 1882. He took up teaching in 1883, initially at a school for Native children at Victoria (now Pakan), and later at MacKay Avenue. During this time he was appointed the first principal of schools after the legal organization of the Edmonton School Division. When he retired from teaching, he worked for a short while as a clerk in McDougall's Store. In June of 1888, Secord left Edmonton to open a fur buying store at Athabasca Landing. The business prospered, and in 1890, he transferred his headquarters to Edmonton. Secord married Annie York in 1891, and they had four children. He was well respected in the community and was elected Conservative M.L.A. for Edmonton. He was also one of the original backers of the Edmonton Journal. The Secord Fur Store and Warehouse became the basis of a partnership between Richard Secord and John A. McDougall. While the McDougall-Secord partnership was not formally incorporated until 1897, it had its origins in 1890 when the fur store was set up in Edmonton. The firm, then engaged in such activities as merchandising, fur buying, purchasing land scrip, real estate, loans, small industry, and outfitting groups attempting to reach the Klondike, exists to this day and is the oldest firm in Edmonton other than the Hudson's Bay Company. [courtesy City of Edmonton website]

Photo: Looking northwest to Mount Secord (left) (courtesy Allan Schierman)