Mount Nkwala, formerly Niggertoe Mountain, is a mountain

Mountain

Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

 in the Okanagan

Okanagan

The Okanagan , also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as Okanagan Country is a region located in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. As of 2009, the region's population is approximately 350,927. The...

 Valley of the Southern Interior of British Columbia

British Columbia Interior

The British Columbia Interior or BC Interior or Interior of British Columbia, usually referred to only as the Interior, is one of the three main regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the other two being the Lower Mainland, which comprises the overlapping areas of Greater Vancouver...

, located immediately west of and overlooking the city of Penticton and the south end of Okanagan Lake

Okanagan Lake

Okanagan Lake is a large, deep lake in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. The lake is 135 km long, between 4 and 5 km wide, and has a surface area of 351 km². The lake's maximum depth is 232 meters near Grant Island...

.

Name origin

The mountain is named for the novel Nkwala by Edith L. Sharp

Edith L. Sharp

Edith Lambert Sharp was a Canadian writer.She was born near Carroll, Manitoba, daughter of Charles Lambert and Edna Louise Sharp. She dropped out of high school in Penticton, British Columbia after one year...

, winner of the 1958 Governor General's Awards

1958 Governor General's Awards

In Canada, the 1958 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were the twenty-second such awards. The awards in this period were an honour for the authors but had no monetary prize.-Winners:*Fiction: Colin McDougall, Execution....

 for Literature (Juvenile Fiction) and also of the Little Brown of Canada Award and the Hans Christian Anderson Diploma of Merit from Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

. The former name, Niggertoe Mountain, has its roots in a story from Christmas Day, 1908, as recounted in the British Columbia Geographical Names Information System entry:

"When or by whom this name was given is not on record. The origin seems to be a tragic affair that began on Christmas Day, 1908, when three negroes, Charles Blair, cook, Arthur Wilson, his assistant, and Arthur Chapman, waiter, all employed at the Hotel Summerland, got lost in a snowstorm while returning from Mass at Penticton. One of them was thrown from his horse and efforts by the others to catch it led to their being thrown too. Blair had been drinking and was unable to travel afoot. Wilson and Chapman wandered about looking for one another or for help until night came on. Chapman fell asleep from exhaustion and Blair from his liquor - never to awaken - their bodies being found near the foot of the mountain next day. Inquest verdict; death from exposure. Wilson, the survivor, [had] slept less and moved about more than the others, eventually reaching Summerland." (12th Report of the Okanagan Historical Society, 1948, citing Summerland Review, 2 January 1909)

Locally, Mount Nkwala is known as Gerry Mountain. Dennis McDonald mapped the mountain in 1949 for the BC Forest Service, and named it after his wife Geraldine. The forest fire look-out station operated until 1969 and was known as Gerry Look-Out.