Baynes Lake
Feature Type:Community - An unincorporated populated place, generally with a population of 50 or more, and having a recognized central area that might contain a post office, store and/or community hall, etc, intended for the use of the general public in the region.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: E side lake Koocanusa, above mouth of Elk River, Kootenay Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 49°13'59"N, 115°13'03"W at the approximate population centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 82G/3
Origin Notes and History:

Baynes Lake (Post Office) adopted 12 December 1939, as labelled on BC map 1EM, 1915, and as identified in 1930 BC Gazetteer; confirmed 2 December 1948 on Columbia River Basin manuscript # 51; form of name changed to Baynes Lake (community) 4 August 1981.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Baynes Lake Post Office opened 1 June 1904. GNR railway station "Baynes" is labelled on BC map 4D, Fernie, 1913.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"...after Andrew Bain [sic], who located land beside this lake in 1896." (James White, Place-names in the Rocky Mountains, published in Transactions, Royal Society of Canada, Sec III, Vol 10, March 1917, p.508)

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Named after James Bayne, an Englishman (Post Office Survey, 1905). [Note that there is no letter re: Bayne/Baynes in British Columbia's copy of the Post Office Survey (1905 letters from Postmasters).]

Source: Canadian Geographical Names Database, Ottawa