British Columbia's first provincial park, established by statute, 1 March 1911. Numerous boundary adjustments over the years. Redescribed per Bill 17-2000: Protected Areas of British Columbia Act, 29 June 2000; the whole containing 245,779 ha. more or less. Redescribed per Bill 38-2008: Protected Areas of British Columbia (Conservancies and Parks) Amendment Act, 23 May 2008; the whole containing approximately 245,849 hectares. Boundary redescribed per Bill 8-2015: Protected Areas of British Columbia Amendment Act, 25 March 2015, the whole now containing approximately 248,669 hectares (247,961 hectares of upland and 708 hectares of foreshore).

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

Named in honour of Donald Alexander Smith, First Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal (1820-1914). Born in Scotland (a nephew of David Stuart of Stuart Lake fame), Donald Smith entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company becoming head of the Montreal Department in 1869. In 1871, an MP; later, director of the CPR. It was Lord Strathcona, who, at Craigellachie near Revelstoke, drove the last iron spike into the rail line linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Photograph in frontspiece, CAJ Vol V, 1913. (Copies of January 1911 telegraphs between Provincial Secretary and Lord Strathcona, and excerpt from Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, re: Donald Alexander Smith received January 1965, file B.1.38 pt.1.)

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