Adopted 6 October 1955 on 82/SW, as labelled on Trutch's 1871 map of British Columbia, etc.

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

Indigenous name "Nichelaam" identified in Palliser's journal, 26 Sept 1859; labelled "Tsaap" on Dewdney's 1865 manuscript.

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

"...the post (Fort Colville) was abandoned in 1870, and Mr. McKenzie and I left overland for Victoria with the records. We took Joseph LaFleur, an old HBC man, with us. When we came to Christina Creek, LaFleur said in French: 'Here is your creek, Christina'. Christina Creek and Lake are named after me....." (from "First Woman Storekeeper in British Columbia", by M.S. Wade, Vancouver Province, 7 November 1926).

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

Named after Christina MacDonald McKenzie Williams, daughter of Catherine Baptiste and J. Angus MacDonald, HBC chief trader at Fort Colville, 1852-70. Married James McKenzie, HBC clerk at Fort Colville who later operated a rival trading post adjacent to the HBC store at Kamloops, 1872. After her husband's death in 1873, Catherine continued to operate the business, and proved to be a most competent businesswoman, cutting deeply into the trade of the HBC... Married Charles Williams in 1875 and moved to Montana, then to Idaho and eventually to Spokane, Washington, where she died in the winter of 1925-26. (from "First Woman Storekeeper in British Columbia", by M.S. Wade, Vancouver Province, 7 November 1926).

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

After Christina McDonald (1847-1926), daughter of Chief Factor Angus McDonald, Hudson's Bay Company headquarters at Colville, who used to accompany her father and the brigade to Kamloops each year. The brigade travelled the east bank of the Kettle River to Christina Creek, which was crossed 1/2 mile below Christina Lake. She acted as book-keeper for her father, carrying the records in a buckskin sack; the horses would be swum across the river and a raft built to carry the goods. One trip (June 1870 ?), the raft on which Christina was crossing this creek went to pieces and she was thrown into the rushing water along with the buckskin sack containing her father's HBC books and papers. She was carried down for some distance before being rescued, but when finally dragged ashore still had hold of the satchel of books, thereby saving its precious contents. For this deed the Council of Chiefs of the Colville Indians gave her and her heirs the sole right to trap and fish in the country tributary to this lake, hence her name for the creek and lake. (Rupert W. Haggen, BCLS, Origin of Place Names in Boundary District, 1945 manuscript).

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

"After an [Indigenous] girl, born on its shore, and baptised Christina by a priest; later drowned in same lake." [no information in BC files to substantiate this version of the name's origin.]

Source: Canadian Geographical Names Database, Ottawa