Over Tsar Mountain, beyond Putin, above authoritarianism
by Jim Everard
Atop Tsar Mountain. Photo Blair Piggot.
Mountains can be dichotomous. They can inspire and/or threaten. They can protect and/or imprison. Mountain names can be innocuous or politically charged. Tsar Mountain in Canada exhibits elements of this dichotomous nature.
Arthur Wheeler named the mountain circa 1920. “When I saw it, so strikingly dominating its surroundings in isolated majesty, I named it The Czar, but later when recording it the spelling Tsar seemed more appropriate.”
We can only speculate on what else inspired Wheeler to choose that name. Possibly the titles Tsar and King had a degree of equivalency at the time, and the “isolated majesty” reference reflects that association. Wheeler might have thought a monarchical and imperial reference was congruent with the times – being so soon after World War I. Possibly, the imperialist impulses of successive tsars, beginning with Ivan the Terrible were not dissimilar to the imperialist playbook of Britain and some Western European nations. Thus his naming of Tsar would have felt appropriate.
Fast forward to today, and the notion of naming a Canadian mountain “Tsar” now feels inconceivable. In early 2022, Vladimir Putin resurfaced tsarist geo-political strategy with yet another Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to historian Dr. Serhy Yekelchyk of the University of Victoria, “…the tsarist government insisted that Ukrainians were not a separate ethnic group, merely the ‘Little Russian tribe’ of the Russian people”. This warped tsarist view is central to Putin’s actions and current propaganda efforts. Troubled by the appearance of the name Tsar on Canadian soil, I felt compelled to make a symbolic effort to acknowledge its fraught existence by flying the Ukrainian flag over the mountain, in addition to making more traditional expressions of solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
With the flag idea in mind, Blair Piggot and I made two separate self-propelled trips towards Tsar Mountain via the Kinbasket River in the summer of 2022, getting within 300 meters of the summit on the second effort. Fortunately, we had experience in turning our backs on rock routes and summits, always returning to those places armed with hard-earned route beta and bespoke gear.
Reproduced with kind permission of Rocky Mountain Books. Bill Corbett, The 11,000ers of the Canadian Rockies (Surrey, BC: Rocky Mountain Books, 2004, 1st Edition), p. 4.
In August 2023, we again drove 145km to the end of the Bush River/Sullivan River/Kinbasket River forestry roads that hug the east side of Kinbasket Lake. Isolation was the predominant feeling at the road’s end. We groaned under the weight of our packs, silently reviewed our commitment to the project, then plunged into the bush and, after 7km, into the Kinbasket River. Three days of effort got us to where most parties now land after a 30-minute helicopter ride.
We were shocked and delighted when, late on day three, two others – Sunny Twelker and Bryce Brown - appeared at our camp. They’d started up the Kinbasket River a full day after us, and were clearly fit. We compared experiences in getting to this point and guffawed at the seeming impossibility of meeting up. (After all, no one had recorded summitting Tsar Mountain via the Kinbasket River approach.) It was reassuring that Blair and I would not be alone on the mountain. The next day (August 28), the four of us roped up, surmounted the bergschrund, and reached the summit, chirping superlatives aloud and to each other about astonishing views.
For two hours, we surveyed the scene around us, identified familiar mountains from new angles and absorbed the significance of our perch. Carabiners attached the Ukrainian flag to an ice axe which was symbolically held above Tsar Mountain. Then, something more permanent was added to the summit. The Tsar Mountain register was located and retrieved. The most recent written entry was from 2018.
I added the following words to the register:
“UKRAINE: Over Tsar, Beyond Putin, Above Authoritarianism”.
Jim Everard
Jim Everard and his climbing partners have completed dozens of first ascents/new routes in Western Canada and Ontario. He has lost or abandoned climbing gear in ranges as diverse as the Pamirs, the Andes, various Alps, and the Himalaya. It’s unlikely you will find Jim on the shortest route between two points on a map, and his patient partners suffer his frequent stops to take photographs. He is an ACC Heritage Member, and belongs to both the ACC Vancouver Island and ACC Toronto Sections.
Photo Blair Piggot.