Toad River, originally Toad's River Post, is a highway service community in northernBritish Columbia, Canada, located at historic Mile 422 on Highway 97, the Alaska Highway, near the confluence of the Toad and Racing Rivers. The community is mainly a travel- and tourism-related stop with highway maintenance, lodging, restaurant, gas station, telephone, private 3000 foot airstrip and such services, though it does have a provincial elementary school. Toad River Lodge includes a collection of over 8,000 hats (2011), many of them donated by those who have passed by while traveling on the Alaska Highway. Two miles north The Poplars Campground offers camping, and motel rooms during the summer months (2011).
The community name derives from the nearby river of the same name that lies close to the Alaska Highway a few miles past the airstrip. The name derives historically from Hudson's Bay Company employees using the Liard River to reach the Northern Interior of British Columbia. It is likely a name given by Robert Campbell on his trips up river to Fort Halkett and Dease Lake during the 1830s. A Hudson's Bay trading post was established here in 1867, with a postmaster in service from 1868 to 1878, but the site was reported abandoned by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1890.
The name was well established by the time R.G. McConnell of the Canadian Geological Survey passed the mouth of Toad River entering the Liard River in 1887. He wrote "and Toad River, which comes in from the south through a deep gloomy valley four miles farther down (from the Crow River mentioned previously in the text). Two miles below Toad River, on the opposite side, is situated Toad River post, which was abandoned when the post on the Nelson was established." (ref.Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada, Annual Report 1888-89,report by R.G. McConnell, 1891, pages 40D-41D).
