Illecillewaet River [ill ah SIL-ah-wet]
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 N end Upper Arrow Lake at Revelstoke, Kootenay Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 50°58'55"N, 118°12'28"W at the approximate mouth of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 82L/16
Related Maps:
Origin Notes and History:

"Illecillewaet (not Illicilliwaet, nor Illecilliwaet, nor Illicillewaet) Glacier, River and Town adopted in the 5th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 30 June 1904, as labelled on 1871 map of British Columbia, by J.W. Trutch; flows SW into Columbia River at Revelstoke. Description altered and coordinates of mouth adjusted 31 October 1977; flows W into N end Upper Arrow Lake.

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

"[Indigenous] name for "Swift Current". It is a very deep tortuous valley that this rapid torrent of green glacier water thunders through.... named in 1865 by Walter Moberly, CE; it was so-designated by the [Indigenous people] he had with him and means 'a very rapid stream'." (The Selkirk Range by A.O. Wheeler, Department of the Interior, 1905, pp 179, 187 & 196).

[Indigenous] name meaning "swift water", according to Mr. A.E. Pickford, Anthropologist (date not cited).

The Okanagan ... word S?lxw ?itkw means big water, not swift water or strong water (Randy Bouchard, BC Indian Language Project, 14 June 1985).

Source: included with note

Headwaters: 51 15, 117 28.

Source: Canadian Geographical Names Database, Ottawa