100 Years Ago, a Canadian Helped Map Everest Summit Route

Brigadier Sir Edward Oliver Wheeler was a Canadian mountaineer, soldier and surveyor who participated in the first topographical survey of Everest in 1921. Wheeler’s exploration of the East Rongbuk Glacier unlocked the route to the summit of Everest via the North Col at 7,000 metres, which he reached with a few other climbers.

In WWII, he became Surveyor General of India, and was awarded the Military Cross and a Croix de Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur.

He retired in B.C. where he lived in Lavington, near Vernon, with his wife Dorothea Sophia Danielson. He made the first ascents of Mount Babel in Alberta and Elkhorn Mountain in B.C. From 1950 to 1954, Wheeler served as president of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC). His father was famous Rockies’ climber Arthur Oliver Wheeler, the founder (along with Elizabeth Parker) of the ACC in 1906.

Wheeler’s Everest