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Geoffrey Bernard Capes

1889 - 1961

Geoffrey Capes was born in England on November 13, 1889, and emigrated to Vancouver in 1911. He met a fellow émigré, Helen Cooke, affectionately known as Nell and the two were married on December 26, 1912. Capes found employment with the British North American Bank (BNA) in Vancouver which eventually merged to become part of the Bank of Commerce (CIBC.). Following overseas service with the Canadian Army, Capes brought his family to the valley in 1920, where he worked as an accountant at the Soldiers Settlement Board office in Merville. Two years later in 1922 was the big Merville fire which changed the life of many. After the fire Capes and Captain George Halley (who was in charge of the Merville settlement office) purchased the Courtenay Builders Supply Company on 5th Street. A few years later Halley sold his share to Capes. On November 24, 1930, the building was razed by fire and Capes relocated the business to the corner of England Avenue and 6th Street. In 1956 the Bank of Montreal purchased the property when Capes retired.

On November 4, 1927, Capes was present at the founding meeting of the Courtenay/Comox Mountaineering Club, nowadays called the Comox District Mountaineering Club, and became a director serving for many years. One of Capes' early trips into the local mountains was an attempt to reach the Comox Glacier in August 1925 with Adrian Paul. He also made regular trips onto Mount Becher in both summer and winter. In 1929 he travelled from Forbidden Plateau up Mount Albert Edward and then down to Ralph Lake and out to Buttle Lake with Barty Harvey, the local Game Warden. Also in that year he finally reached the summit of the Comox Glacier with Ben Hughes, Adrian Paul, Arthur Leighton, Cyril Berkeley and his daughter his twenty-six year old Alfreda, via Kookjai Mountain. In 1936 Capes and Paul attempted to reach the Roosters Comb (Golden Hinde), the island's highest mountain, via the Wolf River valley but ran out of time due to the rugged nature of the route. Then in July 1937 Capes joined Sid Williams and Roger Schjelderup on a return trip to the Roosters Comb. This time they had the surveyors trail to follow up Phillips Creek but as they reached the base camp on the mountain several days later they met the surveyor Norman Stewart and his assistant Dan Harris who had made the ascent earlier that day. However, at the time neither party knew of the ascent of the Roosters Comb by W.W. Urquhart, W.R. Kent and Einar Anderson in 1913 or 1914 during their survey of Strathcona Park. Capes went on to make the second ascent of Elkhorn in 1949 with Bill Lash and his son Mallory, and Charley Nash. Capes was also a member of the Vancouver Island section of the Alpine Club of Canada and between the 1940's and late 1950's he made many trips to various mountains on the island with the club: Mount Joan, Mount Cokely, Mount Arrowsmith, Mount Moriarty, Mount Klitsa, Green Mountain and Big Interior Mountain in 1953 with Syd Watts, Rex Gibson, Mark Mitchell, Roger Stanier and seven others. In 1954 he was on the ACC-VI trip up the Elk River in Strathcona Park with Ted Grieg, Connie Bonner, Mark Mitchell, Syd Watts, Noel Lax, Bill, Mallory and Sylvia Lash, and about ten others, and in 1955 to Mount Constance near Port Angeles with his daughter Katherine, Syd Watts, Cyril Jones, Ted Goodall, Rex Gibson and Ken Stoker. In 1957 he went into the Comox/Cliffe Glacier area with Bill Lash, Elizabeth and Patrick Guilbride, Syd Watts, Bill Bell and Keith Morton. He also attended ACC Camps in the Rockies in 1947, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1956 and 1957. In 1958 he went south of the US border for the first time to Mexico. However, it was the local mountains of Forbidden Plateau that he loved the most and the details of these trips were kept in his daily diaries some of which were printed in the Canadian Alpine Journal's.

Geoffrey Capes was meticulous at keeping a day-to-day diary which has recorded daily life in the Comox Valley. On February 25, 1961, Geoffrey Bernard Capes passed away at the age of seventy-one a few months after his beloved wife "Nell" passed away, however, he has not been forgotten. Halfway between Courtenay and Cumberland near Arden Road is a "little treasure" that very few people are aware exists called Capes Park. In August 1968, the Arden Improvement district purchased the five and three quarter acres of wooded area from the Capes family to reflect the unique beauty of the Arden area. Capes had acquired this property through the Soldier Settlement Board "salvage" properties after he had lost everything in the 1922 fire.

In Capes' diary his entry for September 20, 1935, reads: "Attended a meeting with Mr. [Norman] Stewart, the surveyor of our mountains, about suggesting 75 names, we covered about 50. [Roger] Schjelderup, [Ben] Hughes, Mrs. [Elma]Theed Pearse, Peggy Watt, Rev. Chapman, Sid Williams, Dick Idiens were present. A lake was named after me, one [Adrian] Paul and I discovered years ago when we climbed the wrong mountain." Capes Lake is located on a ridge near the Comox Glacier and nearby is Idiens Lake named after his close friend Richard (Dick) Idiens.

Sources:
Capes, Geoffrey. "Exploring Strathcona Park." Canadian Alpine Journal. Vol. 12. The Alpine Club of Canada. Banff, Alberta. 1921-22. p. 184-185.

Capes, Geoffrey. "Gould's Dome." Canadian Alpine Journal. Vol. 12. The Alpine Club of Canada. Banff, Alberta. 1921-22. p. 185-186.

"The Glacier." The Comox Argus. [Courtenay, B.C.] (August 13, 1925) p. 1, 3 & 8.

"Winter Sports on Plateau." The Comox Argus. [Courtenay, B.C.] (December 6, 1928) p. 1.

"Mountaineering." The Comox Argus. [Courtenay, B.C.] (August 14, 1930) p. 2.

"Mountaineering." The Comox Argus. [Courtenay, B.C.] (August 9, 1934) p. 2.

Brief obituary. Comox District Free Press. [Courtenay, B.C.] (March 1, 1961) p. 1.

Hagen, Judy. "Hidden park tells a story." The Record. [Courtenay, B.C.] (July 29, 1994)

Hagen, Judy. "Starting a new life after war." The Comox Valley Echo. [Courtenay, B.C.] (April 6, 2010) p. A9.

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