Historical evidence and common sense indicates that the name South Saskatchewan River is of relatively recent creation, and that historically pre- 1800(?) The River from Calgary to its joining with the North Saskatchewan to form the Saskatchewan was known as the Bow River.
Today the South Saskatchewan starts where the Bow River joins with the Oldman River near Grassy Lakes, Alberta. However old maps show the Bow River name used for the river all the way to where it joins with the North Saskatchewan.
The North Saskatchewan meanwhile was simply called the Saskatchewan and Edmonton was a place in the Saskatchewan river valley, along the Saskatchewan River.
The South Saskatchewan was called the South Branch in the HBC fort journals, but it seems to me that only a person going upriver would notice the South Saskatchewan branching off but someone using the river upstream like at Calgary would merely see it as a river and give it a name unrelated to its mouth far away. So Bow River would be its name.
It is rare for two rivers to come together and the ensuing flow take a third name. Almost always one of the tributaries' names is maintained. So the South Saskatchewan River name seems of recent manufacture.
In Roberson Ross's 1872 Report of a reconnaissance of the North-West provinces...
"after travelling two days in southwesterly direction from Rocky Mountain House,
on the 18th September we reached the South Saskatchewan river here called the Bow River." (p. 20) This is evidence of the confusion and overlap of the two names.
And I even query whether Natives used North or South in their place name nomenclature. Perhaps one of you know the answer to that one.
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