In 1925, while on a trip to Mount Arrowsmith, Vancouver Island, Don and Phyllis Munday spotted what they believed to be a peak taller than Mount Robson, the then accepted tallest peak entirely within British Columbia. In the words of Don Munday, "The compass showed the alluring peak stood along a line passing a little east of Bute Inlet and perhaps 150 miles away, where blank spaces on the map left ample room for many nameless mountains." While there is debate as to whether the peak they saw was Mount Waddington (Don Munday observed that the feat is impossible), they almost certainly saw a peak in the Waddington Range, and this led the Mundays to explore that area.