Donald "Curly" Phillips

Donald "Curly" Phillips
Curly Phillips with his dog, Jasper, Alberta
Born	April 15, 1884 Dorset, Ontario
Died	March 21, 1938 Jasper National Park
Residence	Jasper, Alberta
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Guide

Donald Nelson "Curly" Phillips was a Canadian guide, outfitter, entrepreneur, and explorer who was a part of many pioneering expeditions in the northern Canadian Rockies in the early twentieth century. He settled in Jasper, Alberta, and was involved in the development of mountain tourism in the region.

Phillips was born on April 15, 1884 in the township of Dorset, Ontario to parents Daniel Alven Phillips and Dorothy Storm Robinson He received a well-rounded education, but spent the bulk of his young life in the forests and on the lakes of Northern Ontario apprenticing in the wilderness life of hunting, fishing, trapping, guiding, and building and navigating boats. The aptitude he showed for entertaining and guiding clients, and the skills he learned in navigation, trail construction, and carpentry would be put to good use in his outfitting career in western Canada. On his twenty-fourth birthday, in 1908, Phillips boarded the CP Rail train in Biscotasing and said goodbye to Ontario to seek his fortune in the Rocky Mountains.

"Curly" Phillips first made a name for himself in the summer of 1909, when he chanced to meet the Rev. George Kinney, alone and struggling with packhorses loaded for an expedition in the waters of the Athabasca River near John Moberly's cabin (East of present-day Jasper) and immediately convinced him to accompany him on an ill-prepared adventure to attempt a third trip on his quest for the first ascent of Mount Robson. Kinney describes him as "A sturdy youth of twenty-five, wearing on his Stetson the silver badge of the Guides Association of Ontario,... A very prince of the trail. Quick, handy, a splendid cook, he made a camp-mate that could not be excelled... and though he had never climbed mountains before that summer, he proved to be a cool-headed and cautious climber." The two proceeded to spend over a month in camp making four large climbs up the northwest side of Robson, the final of which they claimed to have stood on the summit, though this was discredited by the Alpine Club of Canada due to lack of evidence and the unlikely nature of the route and the unsanctioned expedition. Alpine Club founding member and writer Elizabeth Parker would later claim that Phillips admitted in 1913 that they had been stumped by a final dome of ice at the summit that they could not surmount, though he himself, a dedicated diarist, had not written of this climb and never wrote or spoke definitively against it.