Chilliwack's Placenames

Lloyd Snider

Mount Snider

Mount Snider is named for Pilot Officer Lloyd Snider. 

Lloyd Snider received his elementary and high school education in Chilliwack. His family left for Saskatchewan to take up grain farming, but returned to Chilliwack before the Second World War, as the new venture was not successful. Lloyd did not return with his parents but made his own way to British Columbia taking on various jobs in mining and on freight boats. With the outbreak of the Second World War, he obtained work with Boeing Aircraft of Vancouver. Snider enlisted in the R.C.A.F. in October 1942 and became an air gunner who completed 32 operational missions with his crew. Flying with 425 “Alouette” Squadron, a bomber unit operating with Halifax aircraft, Snider was killed on a cross‑country flight on August 2, 1944. While flying at 4,000 feet, the Halifax suddenly began to dive and crashed into the ground one-mile south-west of Llyth Nottinghamshire, England. There were no survivors. The all R.C.A.F. crew were Flight Lieutenant G.D. Stark D.F.C., Pilot Officers E.F. Pitkin, J.J. Pigeon, P.P. Davies, Flight Sergeant J.E. Code and Sergeant M.H. Waters. On August 13, 1944 a memorial service for Lloyd Snider was held at Latter Day Saints Church, Rosedale (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).

MountSnider is along the Coquihalla River, between Dewdney and Sowaqua creeks.

Photograph caption: Pilot Officer Lloyd Snider [Chilliwack Museum and Archives].