When you climb Gott Peak, do so reverently. Frank Gott was born around 1850 to mixed parentage, his father having settled in Lillooet a good ten years in advance of other non-natives, and he became one of the most celebrated big-game guides and explorers of the area and also was an avid reader who taught himself a great deal about the world through self-study. A stout 5'5", when he was in his sixties he enlisted in the Expeditionary Forces in defiance of age regulations, and served as a sniper. Concerning his enlistment, Mrs. Edwards writes:

"The Duke of Connaught, reviewing the troops, picked him out with his white hair, and asked his age. Frank said 'My military age is 47'. But when the Duke whispered 'What is your real age?' Frank answered, 'Over sixty, sir'." A further account goes that the Duke added, "Very good, then, young man".

Legends of his war prowess and mojo abound, including stories of him sitting up above the trenches while bullets whizzed about him, calmly eating his lunch. Defying all odds, and apparently never wearing a gas mask, he wound up contracting TB in the trenches and, already decorated for bravery (more than once, I believe), he was given an honourable discharge and returned home to Lillooet to take up guiding again, despite his advancing age.

I'll take the liberty of quoting again from Mrs. Edwards' "Short Portage to Lillooet":

"Frank Gott came to a sad ending. He would have died in a few months [from the TB], but thought if he could get some fresh deer meat he would be better. He shot a deer out of season and the Game Warden caught him. He had a dispute with the Warden and warned him not to touch his packs. He shot the Warden and was hunted in the hills as a fugitive. The Game Wardens caught up with him and shot him down on a hillside as he was trying to crawl across the face of it. There was much regret in Lillooet over this unhappy affair".

This was in October 1932; he actually died of his wounds in Lillooet Jail. He would have been around 82 years old, and still strong enough to hunt despite the TB; supposedly it was venison liver that was the native cure for TB, or another organ-flesh, and it had to be killed at that time of year for the cure to work. It should be further explained that he was native by culture, but white by law.

Some say had he gotten away across that hillside, he would have made it to the depths of the Lillooet Ranges and escaped to the United States, as he knew the mountains there better than the new Game Wardens did. I think the peak he was shot from the side of is Gott Peak itself, which is how it got its name.

So whoever's up there next, say a prayer for him and burn your sweetgrass or whatever you do to honour someone, because the mountain you've climbed wasn't named after an ordinary man, perhaps a man even more extraordinary than the many other remarkable men whose names stud the map of the Bridge River-Lillooet Country and the High Cayoosh.