“Small River” appears on the 1871 map of British Columbia Surveyor General <Joseph William Trutch [1826–1904]’s 1871. Somewhere along the way it was officially demoted to a creek.

In 1909, Stanley Washburn [1878–1950] said “Small River” was one of the names “given by the trappers.”

Edward Willet Dorland Holway [1853–1923] approached the creek from its headwaters in 1915:

At the head of Horse Creek is a great glacier with several peaks about 10,500 feet, and between Horse Creek and Small River, on a branch of which we now were, is a very fine glacier-covered mountain around 10,500 feet.…
We followed Small River to a cabin on the Fraser, where we found flour and potatoes, crossed in the morning to an old construction camp, where there were just spikes enough to build a small raft, upon which we piled our things and floated down to Croydon, where we had left our trunks.