Canal Flats (Post Office) adopted October 2, 1952 on Columbia River Basin manuscript 60, as long identified on BC maps, and as identified in 1909 BC Gazetteer, and as labelled on BC map 1EM, 1915. Form of name changed to Canal Flats (Post Office & Railway Point) 15 December 1981 on 82J/4; further changed to Canal Flats (Community) 15 December 1982 on 82J/4. Incorporated as a Village Municipality per Order in Council 290, 25 March 2004, effective 29 June 2004.

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

Grohman Post Office opened 1 May 1888, postmaster W.B. Grohman; closed 1 May 1890. Canal Flats Post Office opened 1 August 1913. Identified as Canalflat in CP timetables through 1952.

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

David Thompson named this McGillivray's Portage, presumably after his friend and fellow fur trader & exlplorer Duncan McGillivray, who in 1800 had searched with Thompson for an overland route to the Pacific; Duncan McGillivray died in 1808, the year that Thompson explored the Upper Columbia and Kootenay Rivers. Note however that Duncan's brother, William McGillivray, was chief superintendant of the Northwest Company from 1799 until it was merged with the Hudsons Bay Company in 1821; another brother, Simon McGillivray, spearheaded the Northwest Company's interests in London.

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

So-called on account of the canal between Columbia Lake and Kootenay River constructed between 1883-88 by William Adolph Baillie-Grohman, English investor, sportsman and author. One boat passed through the canal before the project was abandoned in 1889.

Source: Provincial Archives of BC "Place Names File" compiled 1945-1950 by A.G. Harvey from various sources, with subsequent additions

"..the canal was part of a perfectly reasonable scheme to divert some of the water of the upper Kootenay River into the Columbia system and thus to lower the level of Kootenay lake sufficiently to reclaim the rich alluvial plan adjacent to Creston. Unfortunately, under pressure from the CPR, concerned about its Columbia River crossings, and from settlers around Golden who feared that their hay meadows would be flooded, the Canadian government so modified the original plans as to render the canal more costly and limited in usefulness. Baillie-Grohman finally abandoned the whole project in disgust. In 1894 the Gwendoline, and in 1902 the North Star successfully passed from the Kootenay River to the Columbia using Baillie-Grohman's canal."

Source: Akrigg, Helen B. and Akrigg, G.P.V; British Columbia Place Names; Sono Nis Press, Victoria 1986 /or University of British Columbia Press 1997

"[At] the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, this favour [baptism] was conferred on [Morigeau, his wife and seven children], and also on the children of three Indian families who accompany [Morigeau] in his migrations... In memory of so many benefits, a large cross was erected in the plain, which from that time was called the Plain of the Nativity." (Father Pierre Jean de Smet, SJ, "Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains, 1845-46" New York: Edward Dunigan, 1947, p.135)

Source: Provincial Archives of BC "Place Names File" compiled 1945-1950 by A.G. Harvey from various sources, with subsequent additions