Barrière River
Feature Type:River - Watercourse of variable size, which has tributaries and flows into a body of water or a larger watercourse.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: Flows SW into North Thompson River between Kamloops and Clearwater, Kamloops Division Yale Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 51°10'25"N, 120°08'19"W at the approximate mouth of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 92P/1
Related Maps:
Origin Notes and History:

Barrière River adopted 11 August 1921 for Pub # 1945 (Geological Survey of Canada Summary Report 1921, Pt. A, p.72) as labelled on Geological Survey map of Southern Interior of British Columbia, 1877 et seq. Barrière River confirmed 3 March 1955 on 92P.

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

Named by French Canadian fur traders because it was difficult to cross. "The [Barrière River] as its name imports, is sometimes crossed with difficulty in the spring." (G.M. Dawson, Geological Survey of Canada Summary Report, 1877-78). Labelled "Barriere (Saskum) River" on Forestry map R.35 (date not cited).

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

or.... was it so named because the Indians had a fish-trap across it ?

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

"The mouth of the river was so-named by 1828, when Archibald McDonald achieved our first map. Rocks at that site were an impediment to navigation, and French was the fur traders' language."

Source: Place Names of the Kamloops District; Kamloops Museum, 1978

Headwaters at 51 31 - 119 42 on 82M/12.

Source: Canadian Geographical Names Database, Ottawa