Quesnel Lake adopted 5 March 1900, as labelled on Trutch's 1871 map of BC, and on Amos Bowman's 1887 map of the Cariboo Mining District, etc...

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

Named in association with Quesnel River, through which this lake drains, in turn named by Simon Fraser after Jules Maurice Quesnel, North West Company clerk who accompanied him when he descended [the Fraser River] in 1808.

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

Mis-spelled "Quesnelle" by John Strathern, PLS, in 1894 Sessional Papers, p.986.

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

Area: 263 sq. kilometres. The deepest lake in BC, and the third deepest (known) lake in North America, with a maximum recorded depth of 530 metres (1739 feet). The deepest fjord lake in the world - ie. created by glacial scouring along a valley bottom. Quesnel Lake was created during a period of combined glacial and volcanic activity between 160,000 and 140,000 years ago; in the last stages of melting, volcanoes erupted onto the edges of the ice. Because the glacier was there, it prevented the valley from being filled with volcanic debris. See also Beautiful BC magazine, Winter 1993.

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