"Manito: the mysterious and unknown potencies and powers of life and of the universe. As taken over from Algonquian into the vocabulary of the white name, it has signified spirit, good, bad or indifferent... the spelling manitou indicated French influence, the earlier writers in English using manitto, manetto, manitoa, etc.... The form manitou comes with French intermediation from the central dialects, the Chippewa, and Nipissing, or Cree... " (Handbook of Indians of Canada, Geographic Board of Canada, 1913, p.273). [Courtesy B.C. Geographical Names]