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British Columbia Tourism Region : Thompson Okanagan
Description From Owner:
Guichon CreekSpius Creek
- Guichon Creek - After Joseph, Pierre, and Laurent Guichon, 'Old Country French,' not French-Canadians, who settled in the district in 1873.
- Joseph later founded the Guichon Cattle Co. Ltd. at Quilchena and became one of British Columbia's cattle kings.
- Iron Mountain - So named by G.M. Dawson because of a spectacular deposit of iron ore near the top of this mountain.
- Merritt - Earlier names of Forksdale and Diamond Vale were laid aside in 1906 when the settlement was named after William Hamilton Merritt, one of the promoters of the railway, through the Nicola Valley to Spences Bridge,
- that opened up the country for coal mining.
- Monck Park - When Major C.S. Goldman, owner of the Nicola Lake Stock Farm, retired in 1951 at the age of eighty-one, he gave land for this park, which is named after one of his sons, who distinguished himself in World War II.
- Nicola Lake - After a famous Thompson Indian head chief, Hwistesmexe'quen ('Walking Grizzly Bear'), 1789-1865, who was given the name of Nicolas by early fur traders. The Indians pronounced this as 'Nkwala' (see Nkwala, Mount).
- The fur traders recognized Nicolas as the most powerful and influential chief in the southern Interior of British Columbia.
- The Anderson map of 1849 shows both Lac de Nicholas and R. Nicholas. John Tod, the old HBC trader at Kamloops, drily notes in his memoirs that Nicholas or Nicola was 'a very great chieftain and a bold man, for he had 17 wives.'
- Spius Creek - This is a Thompson Indian name meaning 'twisted creek.'
- Sugarloaf Mountain - So named not because of its shape but because on it grew some Douglas-fir trees that produced the so-called 'wild sugar' or 'Douglas fir sugar' (melezitose, a very rare trisaccharide).
- The Thompson Indian name of the mountain can be translated as 'tree milk.'
- With permission from G.P.V and Helen B. Akrigg 1997 British Columbia Place Names. UBC Press.
Address of this page: http://bc.ruralroutes.com/Merritt
