Chilliwack's Placenames

Jorgenson

Mount Jorgenson

Mount Jorgenson is named after Flying Officer Maurice Jorgenson.

The Jorgenson family moved to Rosedale from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in the early 1930s. In Rosedale the family operated a garage and Maurice’s father became active in the Provincial Recreation Program. Many Rosedale youths became participants in gymnastics, wrestling and boxing and Maurice was a successful wrestler and boxer. He was the runner‑up in the Dominion Wrestling Championships in 1939 and in the spring of 1940 he won the Greater Vancouver Welterweight Boxing Championship. Maurice attended Chilliwack High School and prior to his enlistment in the R.C.A.F. in September 1940, a social evening and novelty dance was held for Roy Gleig and himself. During the event, held at the East Chilliwack Women’s Institute Hall, Frank Grainger presented Maurice with a signet ring. In 1941, still active in sports, Maurice won the Eastern Division welterweight title of the Inter Army/Air Force Trials. Maurice was first trained as an air frame mechanic but remustered to pilot and after graduation was stationed in the Bahamas flying bombers from Nassau to Africa on ferry flights. In November 1943 he was posted to Burma and subsequently to South East Asia command in Ceylon (Ferguson, 2009).

In 1947, geographical features were named by an agency of the federal government, the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical names after receiving a list of names of Canadian servicemen from Chilliwack who were killed during the Second World War From Canada’s Department of National Defence. The names were divided by province and were to be assigned to geographical features close to the place of enlistment (Grainger, 1998, p.82).

Mount Jorgenson is located north of Hope between Ogilvie Peak and Squeah Mountain.

Photograph caption: Flying Officer Maurice Jorgenson. [Chilliwack Museum and Archives]