Eutsuk Lake
Feature Type:Lake - Inland body of standing water.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: S of W end of Ootsa Lake, Nechako Reservoir, Range 4 Coast Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 53°17'24"N, 126°40'04"W at the approximate centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 93E/7
Related Maps:
Origin Notes and History:

Adopted 10 January 1922 on Ottawa file OBF 0662, as labelled on BC Lands' map 1A, 1912. Re-approved 13 March 1947 on 93/SW.

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

Eutsuk is the local name, probably a corruption of Te-oots-a-bungut, the name provided to Frank Swannell, BCLS, by Chief Louis of the Cheslattas in 1910. Other names and spelling variations include Big Ootsa, Te-ootsa-bungut, Tatchetkin...

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

From the Carrier name Etê'-auh Yootsoo, "way off Yootsoo" or "farthest Yootsoo" referring to the lake's connection with Ootsa lake. (Morice, Fifty Years in Western Canada)

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

About 1876 Horetzky, CPR engineer, made a reconnaissance up the Kimsquit (or as he called it, Tchatsquot) River and across to Eutsuk Lake via Smaby Pass. He calls Eutsuk Lake "Talchelkin", possibly a name given him by Coast [First Nations] of his party. The Interior [First Nations] do not know it by this name. Horetsky's altitude is 2802 feet. (note on BC name card, written 3 November 1921 by F. Swannell, BCLS)

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

"According to Father Morice (the first white man to see this lake), his [First Nations] companions named it after him. The authorities in Victoria refused to accept Morice's 'Morice Lake' and renamed it 'Eutsuk' from two [Indigenous] words,"yu" (very) and "tsu" (low down)."

Source: Akrigg, Helen B. and Akrigg, G.P.V; 1001 British Columbia Place Names; Discovery Press, Vancouver 1969, 1970, 1973.

See "Will to Power" by David Mulhall, for one version of how Father Morice named this Morice Lake [pp.110-111].

Source: BC place name cards, files, correspondence and/or research by BC Chief Geographer/Geographical Names Office.