Moyie
Feature Type:Community - An unincorporated populated place, generally with a population of 50 or more, and having a recognized central area that might contain a post office, store and/or community hall, etc, intended for the use of the general public in the region.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: E side of Moyie Lake, S of Cranbrook, Kootenay Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 49°17'17"N, 115°49'56"W at the approximate population centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 82G/5
Origin Notes and History:

"Moyie (town); not Mooyie" adopted in the 2nd Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 30 June 1900. Changed to Moyie (post office & railway station) in the 1930 BC Gazetteer. Form of name changed to Moyie (community) 28 February 1983 on 82 G/5.

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

Moyie Post Office was opened 1 January 1899, named in association with the river, in turn a corruption of the French, mouiller, "to (make) wet", the name given by trappers owing to the moist conditions described by David Thompson, 1808.

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

CPR's paddlewheeler Moyie was commissioned to run on the Stikine River, but the collapse of the Yukon Gold Rush led to the shipment of its machinery and hull frame to Nelson, for assembly in the fall of 1898. Her first passenger run was 7 December 1898, operating between Nelson and Kootenay Landing. The Moyie ran on Kootenay Lake until 1957 - the last passenger-carrying, steam-driven sternwheeler operating in Canada and the western United States. She was beached at Kaslo in 1958 and became a museum; eventually declared a National Historic Site as the oldest existing intact vessel of its type in the world. Restoration work was begun c1988 with the view to full restoration in time for the centennial of her first run. See Royal BC Museum's magazine, Discovery, vol.25, no.4, November 1997, for details about the restoration project.

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