Ahousat (Post Office & Steamer Landing) adopted 3 April 1934 on C.340, as labelled on British Admiralty charts since 1861, and as labelled on BC map 2A, 1913 et seq, and as listed in 1930 BC Gazetteer. Form of name changed to Ahousat (Locality) 15 December 1982 on 92 E/8.

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

Named in 1861 by Captain Richards, after the tribe who inhabited the village, the Ah-ous-aht.

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

"An [Indigenous] village inhabited by the Ah-ous-aht tribe, numbering, in 1905, 263 persons. The [Indigenous] meaning of the word is "people living with their backs to the land and mountains", because the original home of the tribe was on the sea front of Vargas Island near Foam reefs, there being no land to obstruct the full view of the ocean from the village. This abandoned home, Ahous, from which they derived their name, is occasionally used by members of the tribe as a fishing station... Mak-to-sis, on Flores Island, the present home of the Ahousats, was years ago a burying place of the now extinct tribe of Out-sos-aht, whose home was on the sea coast of Flores Island about 2 miles east of Rafael point.... 'The harbour in Ahasset' mentioned in Captain Kendrick's deed in 1791 is evidently meant to indicate this locality...."

Source: Walbran, John T; British Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: their origin and history; Ottawa, 1909 (republished for the Vancouver Public Library by J.J. Douglas Ltd, Vancouver, 1971)

Note that H.D. Parizeau, Hydrographic Service, reported in 1934 that the [Indigenous People] repudiate the meaning provided by Walbran, and say it is the whiteman's invention.

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