Kitsault 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 S into Alice Arm, Observatory Inlet, Cassiar Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 55°28'46"N, 129°28'51"W at the approximate mouth of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 103P/6
Related Maps:
Origin Notes and History:

"Kitsault River (not Kitzault, Kitzaulte, Gitzault, Chigitsoult, nor Kitsaulte)" adopted June 1922, as labelled on BC map 1H, 1917. Confirmed 6 August 1953 on 103 P.

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

Clearwater Creek identified in the 1930 BC Gazetteer, as 4 mile long tributary, since determined to be the main channel of Kitsault River.

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

An Indigenous name meaning "on the inside" (the inlet on the inside). c1922 notation on BC name card.

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

The name, which should more properly have been spelt " Kitsautl " (ending in a lateral fricative) is the anglicized form of "Gits'oohl", a Nisga'a name meaning "at the back" designating Alice Arm, located at the back of a strip of land separating it from the Nass River [gi- /locative prefix; ts'oohl/back of ] (M-L Tarpent, NW Languages Newsletter, vol 4, No. 2, p.4)

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