Here’s my Christmas gift to you: useless regional trivia that you can use to annoy your friends and family this weekend. Below, you’ll find all the geographic place names in the Northwest that include the word Christmas.
British Columbia
- Christmas Creek (the northern one), flows into Hyland Lake way up north near the border with Yukon Territory.
- Christmas Creek (the central one), flows into Eagle Creek near Wells Gray Provincial House and east of 100 Mile House. An expansion of this creek is named Christmas Lake.
- Christmas Hill is just north of Swan Lake in the city of Saanich, a town that also boasts a Christmas Avenue.
- Christmas Point, nearby, is on the west side of the Finlayson Arm that extends south from the Saanich Inlet near Victoria.
- Christmas Island is an unofficial name for an island in the Columbia River just south of Revelstoke.
Idaho
- Christmas Mountain rises almost 3,500 feet in the Owyhee country south of Boise.
- Christmas Tree Gulch is located in the mountainous area between Hells Canyon and White Bird.
- Christmas Creek flows into the Clearwater River northeast of Orofino.
- The St. Maries area on the St. Joe River southeast of Lake Coeur d’Alene is home to a Christmas Hills Road and a South Christmas Tree Lane.
Oregon
- Christmas Lake sits in eastern Oregon’s high desert country southeast of Bend. The lake lends its name to the surrounding Christmas Lake Valley and the hamlet of Christmas Valley. It should not be confused with Christmas Valley Lake, a small water body in the hamlet that is dwarfed by the much larger lake to the northeast.
- Christmas Creek Camp is located along Christmas Creek (also known as Xmas Creek) in the Wallowas of northeast Oregon.
- A variant name for the Klamath River of southern Oregon and northern California was the Christmas River. The name appeared on a territorial map dated to 1838.
Washington
- Christmas Lake is located near the much better known Rattlesnake Lake, which is near North Bend in eastern King County.
- Christmas Creek on the Olympic Peninsula flows into the Hoh River southwest of Forks.
- Christmas Creek southwest of Mount Saint Helens flows through Christmas Canyon into the Lewis River east of Longview. (A variant spelling is Christmass.)
- Tiny Harnden Island, a satellite of Sucia Island in the San Juan archipelago, is alternately known as Herndon, Harndon, Wilkins, or Christmas Island.
You’re welcome.
Sources: I relied heavily on the BC Geographical Names index and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. I also consulted Google and my own geography trivia-storing brain.
