Edward Oliver Wheeler was the son of a surveyor and renowned alpinist, Arthur Oliver Wheeler a Dominion Land Surveyor, who co-founded the Alpine Club of Canada and mapped British Columbia's Selkirk Mountains and the British Columbia-Alberta border. His mother was Clara (née Macoun), daughter of Canadian botanist John Macoun. While still a teenager, he accompanied his father to the Selkirk Mountains and learned both how to climb and the Canadian method of photo-topography developed by Dr. Edouard Deville. As a founding member of the Alpine Club of Canada, he guided new members on the initial climbs in the Rockies.