Mt. Waddington is a big ass mountain. Located in the Coast Range between Bute and Knight inlets, it’s the tallest and one of the most remote peaks in BC. At 4019 metres, the mountain’s icy summit is easily visible on a clear day from Mount Washington and other high points on the North Isle.
Recently Matthew Mosveen, pilot, host and producer of the YouTube show Radio Chatter, got an up-close and personal view when he joined Victoria-based landscape photographer Taylor Burk for a photoshoot of this iconic mountain.
Radio Chatter is the self-described “talk show at 10,000 feet.” Mosveen takes to the air for great views and an aerial interview with a special guest for each episode. Recently Mosveen took to the air with Burk for a Waddington flyover.
During the 20-minute flight, Burk explains how he went from being a social media-hating guy who had barely held a camera, to a professional adventurer, travel and nature photographer with more than 400,000 followers. Good timing and dedication to the craft pretty much sum it up.
He now makes a living as a brand campaigner and photographer. The job gets him out and about to some wild places, like flying above beautiful Mt. Waddington with Matthew Mosveen.
While the bros are chatting away they are backed by beautiful aerials of Mt.Waddington and the coastal range.
Mt Waddington is the highest mountain situated entirely in BC. (Mt. Fairweather is the highest peak in BC, but it lies on the Canada-US border).
They don’t delve into it, but its name is linked to one of the saddest chapters in colonial BC history.
The peak was named after Alfred Waddington, the man behind an ill-fated wagon road in the mid-1800s. Waddington hoped to build along the Homathko River from Bute Inlet to BC’s interior. Waddington’s Road was supposed to be a shortcut from the coast to the Cariboo goldfields.
Colonial leaders approved the road early in 1863 and construction began. But the Tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) First Nation weren’t so keen. The Tsilhqot’in feared both infringement on their territory and the increased threat of smallpox. Many Tsilhqot’in had already died during the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic.
So in 1864, a group of Tsilhqot’in warriors attacked one of Waddington’s work camps, killing fourteen workers. The event triggered the so-called Chilcotin War.
Mt. Waddington has also captured the imagination of many a mountaineer. Especially Don and Phyllis Munday, an adventuring couple from Vancouver who first spied Waddington during a 1920s climbing trip to Mt. Arrowsmith above Port Alberni. They dubbed it “Mystery Mountain.”
And so began a more than decade-long quest to be the first to climb it. In the end, German-American Fritz Wiessner climber beat them to it by leading a party on the first ascent of Waddington in 1936.
The mountain remains a difficult prize. It sometimes goes an entire year without seeing a single successful ascent.
