(At view point on top of Merritt (Hamilton/Hill)

The name commemorates N-kua-la, a local Indian Chief.  Settlers in this valley in

1867 named their own village ‘The Forks’.  When coal mining and ranching brought the railway in 1906, the settlement was renamed Merritt to honour one of the rail promoters.  The collieries are closed, but mining, ranching and lumbering continue to maintain the development of ‘the country of N-kua-la’.