Colonial Despatches

Thompson Region refers to the area within the watershed of the Thompson River. Simon Fraser named the river after fellow explorer David Thompson; however, the region was also known as “Couteau Country”, after the Thompson Salish people, then referred to as “Couteau” by explorers.1

The Thompson and Fraser Rivers merge at Lytton, which is the heart of the Thompson Region. Lytton and the surrounding area was a key site of the Fraser River Gold Rush, as this despatch, for example, illustrates. Today, the Thompson Region, together with the Nicola Valley, constitutes the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.2

• 1. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Place Names (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 266.
• 2. Thompson-Nicola Regional District, BC Geographical Names Information System.