The location of modern-day Canal Flats. "McGillivray's Crossing" and "McGillivray's Portage" are names given this area by David Thompson, when he passed this way in 1808. Thompson's Map of the North-West Territory of the Province of Canada, drawn in 1813-14 for the North West Company, labels McGillivray's River and Duncan's Mountains (corresponding to todays Moyie/Kootenay drainage and McGillivray Range), so presumably Thompson named the crossing/portage after his friend and fellow fur trader & explorer Duncan McGillivray, who in 1800 had searched with Thompson for an overland route to the Pacific; Duncan McGillivray died in 1808, the year that Thompson explored the Upper Columbia and Kootenay Rivers. Note however that Duncan's brother, William McGillivray, was chief superintendant of the Northwest Company from 1799 until it was merged with the Hudsons Bay Company in 1821, and could be the namesake; another brother, Simon McGillivray, spearheaded the Northwest Company's interests in London.

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