THE CANADIAN LANDSCAPE: MOUNT LOGAN

The Kluane National Park Reserve in the Yukon is home to the highest mountain in the country, Mount Logan. Part of the Mt. St. Elias range, Mount Logan, rising to 5959 metres, is also the second largest mountain in North America and is one of the largest massifs in the world.

In 1890, I.C. Russell of the U.S. Geographical Survey, while studying the Mt. St. Elias Mountains, named the mountain after Sir William Edmond Logan (1798-1875). Logan founded the Geological Survey of Canada in 1842. William Logan was born in Montreal and educated in Scotland, and over the course of his career, he was extremely interested in studying the geological nature of Canada. In 1992, the Geographical Survey of Canada organized an expedition to finally determine the height of Mount Logan. Using the Global Positioning System (GPS), a team of twelve members of the society, resolved the debate about Mount Logan's elevation.

Located west of Whitehorse and less than 100 kilometres from the coast, Mount Logan is subject to extreme weather conditions, meaning its climate is comparable to both the Antarctic and the Himalayas. The mountain is covered mainly by snow and ice, some of which may be thousands of years old, especially where it is in contact with the rock between 200-300 metres below the surface. The cover of ice and snow upon the mountain is permanent, and probably developed on the upper mountain several million years ago.

There are numerous rock outcrops that occur close to its many subsidiary peaks, and the mountain is composed largely of granodiorite, a course-grained plutonic rock containing quartz and plagioclase. The Mt. St. Elias range of mountains is still tectonically active, meaning the mountain is still growing!

Numerous teams from around the world travel to the Yukon to undertake the treacherous climb to Mount Logan's peak. To walk into or from the mountain, one would travel, by foot or skis, over one hundred kilometres of glaciers, taking upwards of two weeks. Therefore, most parties fly into the Icefields from Haines Junction and start their climb from there. The mountain was successfully conquered in 1925 by a team led by Albert A. MacCarthy. MacCarthy was an American mountaineer who spent sixty-five days traveling through the wilderness of both Alaska and the Yukon before reaching the top of the mountain on June 23.

In October 2000, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced his recommendation to change the name of Mount Logan to Mount Trudeau, after the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Significant Events

Mount Logan was first surveyed as a result of a National Geographic Society Grant in 1890. In 1938, the Harvard University Alaskan expedition led by Bradford Washburn discovered one of the largest icefields and glacial groups outside of the polar regions by using aerial photography of Mount Logan and its surrounding areas.