Kootenai
Feature Type:Former Locality - A once-populated place with no current population, or that is usually uninhabited
Status: Not official
Relative Location: W side of Wild Horse River, just NE of Fort Steele, NE of Cranbrook, Kootenay Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 49°39'18"N, 115°35'39"W at the approximate population centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 82G/12
Other Recorded Names:
Fisherville
Origin Notes and History:

Kootenai Post Office was opened 1 July 1866; name changed to Wild Horse Post Office; closed 31 December 1899.

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

"...A thousand miners had pushed up the narrow canyon... to stake claims along the banks of the Wild Horse, and after, they took time out to build a town which was called Fisherville. But that camp didn't last long when it was discovered that gold lay under the townsite, so Fisherville was simply dismantled by the prospectors in order to work the ground underneath. A new camp came into being soon after, a camp south of and higher than Fisherville had been. This new mining camp was named Kootenai although it often went by the name of Wild Horse. Kootenai stood for years, a monument to the placer era long after Kee Chin, Dave Griffiths and a host of others had laid away their gold pans and the Wild Horse had ceased to be famous. ... only a few charred relics of its past remain..." (Gold Creeks and Ghost Towns, by N.L. Barlee, Canada West Magazine, Summerland, 1970/republished by Hancock House, Surrey, 1984)

Source: included with note