Pouce Coupe [poos COOPee]
Feature Type:Village (1) - A populated place with legally defined boundaries, incorporated as a village municipality under the provincial Municipal Act.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: SE of Dawson Creek, Peace River Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 55°42'52"N, 120°08'01"W at the approximate location of the Municipal Hall.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 93P/9
Origin Notes and History:

Pouce Coupe (Post Office & station) adopted 5 May 1949 on 93P/NE, as labelled on BC map 1H, 1917. Incorporated as a Village Municipality 6 January 1932; Pouce Coupe (Village) confirmed 6 February 1952 on 93P/9.

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

Pouce Coupe Post Office was opened 1 August 1912 on the banks of the Pouce Coupé River; the no-accent form of the name was further entrenched when the Village of Pouce Coupe was incorporated in 1932. Today, area residents favour the pronunciation "poos COOPee", but the pronunciations "poos COOP" and "poos coo-PAY" are also heard. See also the municipality's own website.

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

Pouce Coupe (Village) and the adjacent Pouce Coupé River, are examples of entrenched but slighty different spelling forms, possibly rooted in two theories about the names' meaning: some say that Pooscapee, a Beaver Indian, trapped along the river c1800. His name in turn meant "place where the beavers had a dam and went away and left it" or "(one who) lives near an abandoned beaver lodge". [Anthropologists and linguists advise, however, that the word for beaver is "tsa", the word for camp/lodge/tipi is "kwe", and there is no apparent "p" sound in the Beaver dialect. See anthropological paper by Goddard, Pliny Earle; American Museum of Natural History, vol X, parts V & VI; New York; 1917, p.408.]
The more popular theory recalls a celebrated Sekanni Chief who cut or severed his thumb, possibly while cleaning his gun, thence was nicknamed Pouce Coupé ("cut thumb") by francophone HBC traders. His original hunting cabin was located beside the stream that became known as Cut Thumb Creek north of Mackenzie, but he also hunted east of the mountains in an area that became known as the Pouce Coupé Prairie, between today's Dawson Creek and the Pouce Coupé River. See Pouce Coupé River for additional origin information and citations.

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