According to a Cree tradition[REF] recounted by Métis guides accompanying the North West Mounted Police in 1874, sometime around 1840 a band of Cree hunters followed a herd of bison into Blackfoot territory and made camp near the lake.
Some early accounts describing the region state that the name "Old Wives Lake" was originally applied to both the lake that currently bears that name and to nearby Chaplin Lake [REF].