The esker was given its English name by Thomas Simpson and Peter Warren Dease in 1839 to honour Sir John Henry Pelly, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Simpson and Dease had travelled from Great Bear Lake, down the Coppermine River, to Back River. In 1850-51 John Rae, while searching the south coast of Victoria Island for clues to the lost expedition of John Franklin, climbed to the top of Mount Pelly.