"Windermere Lake (not Lower Columbia Lake)" adopted 7 January 1913 (Ottawa file OBF 0024) and published in the 12th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 30 June 1913; confirmed 2 July 1953 on Columbia River Basin manuscript 49.

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

This was called "Kootenae Lake" by David Thompson, near which he founded Kootenae House in 1807. Known later as Marigeau Lake**, then Lower Columbia Lake. Labelled "Lower Columbia Lake" on Trutch's 1871 map of British Columbia. Labelled "Lower Columbia or Salmon Lake" on G.M. Dawson's 1886 Reconnaissance Map of Portion of the Rocky Mountains, published by Geological Survey of Canada. The Shuswap [Secwepemc] name means "Salmon Lake". The Ktunaxa name is not recorded here. **Marigeau [sic] refers to François Baptiste Morigeau, who settled with his family near the source of the Columbia about 1819 (see Morigeau, Mount for additional biographical information).

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

Named "Windermere Lake" in 1883 by G.M. Sprout, who explored the Columbia Valley with A.S. Farwell that year for the provincial government; so-named because of its resemblance to Lake Windermere in the English Lake district.

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