Ootischenia is one of two Doukhobor place names that remain widely used in West Kootenay.
Oro, which means gold in Italian and Spanish, was a townsite at the junction of Lemon and Crusader Creeks in the Slocan Valley.
The Slocan Valley community of Passmore has a confusing naming history, including two or three possible namesakes.
The border crossing southwest of Rossland was named for Archibald Neil Paterson (1865-1935).
Today Paulson is a bridge, a backroad, and a highway, but originally it was a siding on the Columbia and Western Railway.
The Slocan Valley community of Perry Siding was likely named for Charles Edward Perry (1843-1906), a civil engineer and land surveyor.
When James White of the Geographic Survey of Canada inquired about how Pilot Bay got its name, he received an intriguing reply.
Playmor Junction, at the intersection of Highway 6 and 3A, is one of the more recent additions to local toponymy, dating to 1968.
The Lardeau ghost town of Poplar Creek was the site of a short-lived gold rush that began in 1903.
Of the few remaining railway siding signs in this area, Poupore surely ranks as the oddest.
Is it Procter or Proctor? The answer is simple but the explanation is complicated.
According to Kootenay Outlet Reflections, Queens Bay “received its name before 1883, when the Ainsworth Mining Camp opened.”
Remac is a compound name taken from the principal locators of the Reeves MacDonald mining properties.
Retallack is another place in the Valley of the Ghosts along Highway 31A between Kaslo and New Denver known by several names.
The origin of Riondel’s name is no mystery, but its pronunciation has been controversial for generations.
Ritaville was only ever mentioned once but it’s notable as one of the few local places named after a woman.
Rosebery, on Slocan Lake, was originally known as Wilson Creek, the body of water that flows through it.
The area where Rossland sits was first called kEluwi’sst or kmarkn by the Sinixt First Nation, who knew it as a good area for huckleberries.
Last week we saw that Rossland was originally known as Thompson, after Ross Thompson, who pre-empted a homestead on the future city’s site.
Salmo is the Latin form of salmon and takes its name from the Salmon River (now Salmo River) that flows through it.
