The valley of the Miette River, over which Caledonia Mountain looms, was sometimes referred to as the Caledonian Valley during the fur trade era. “The afternoon proved that the valley is worthy of its old name Caledonian, if the name was meant to suggest the thistle of the ‘wha’ daur meddle wi’ me!’” wrote George Monro Grant [1835–1902] after his 1872 trip with Sandford Fleming [1827–1915].

“New Caledonia” was the name for the interior of British Columbia during the fur trade, a name given by Simon Fraser [1776–1862] because the country reminded him of his mother’s descriptions of her native Scotland. Caledonia is a Celtic word meaning “a dweller in woods and forests.”