According to one source it was named by the Japanese interned there during World War II; however, there were no internment camps that far north during the war. The more likely explanation dates from around the 1930s. There was a commercial fishing operation there at that time run by Mr. Mclnnes, who recruited Japanese fisherman to work along with the local aboriginal fishermen. They camped along this channel while working on the freezer barge that was used as a floating fish processing platform. A snye usually refers to a narrow, meandering, sluggish side channel of a river. It may be a corruption of the Canadian French chenal, meaning channel. An older spelling of snye makes the connection clearer, i.e., shnye.

Flows north into Big Point Channel approximately 200 km north north-east of Fort McMurray.