Kootenay River - Name

Name

The river was described with slightly different names by two groups of the local Ktunaxa (Kootenai) tribes. The indigenous people who lived along the upper river knew it as aqkinmiluk, simply meaning "river". The people along the lower river called it aqkoktlaqatl, a name whose meaning is not certain. The name "Flatbow River" comes from the name the Blackfeet used to call the Ktunaxa, for their "powerful, stylish bows", and was later recorded by French-Canadian fur traders.

While searching for the ultimate source of the Columbia River, explorer David Thompson encountered Columbia Lake, where the Columbia River starts north as a small stream and the Kootenay rushes south, already a powerful river. Already knowing from earlier maps that the region included two rivers called the Columbia and the Kootenay, Thompson thought that what is now called the Columbia was the Kootenay, and he thought that he had not yet found the real Kootenay. Thence he applied the name “McGillivray’s River” to the real Kootenay in honor of his trading partners William and Duncan McGillivray. In his writings, the Columbia from Columbia Lake to the Big Bend was actually called the Kootenae.

The name "Kootenai" was also used by French Canadians to refer to the Ktunaxa in the 19th century. "Kootenai" is thought to be a word meaning "water people" in an Algonquian language. The river is still referred to as Kootenai in the United States, while in Canada, where two-thirds of its length and 70 percent of its drainage basin lies, the river is spelled slightly different into Kootenay.

Comparisons of various U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps from the 20th century show many misinterpretations or alternative names being applied to the segment of the river within the United States. These include "Kootanie", "Kootenie", and "Kootienay". The Geographic Names Information System of the USGS lists "Swan River" as an alternate name although the origin of this name is uncertain. (There, however, is a Swan River further southeast in Montana.)