1913 From Time Immemorial

to the Townsite of Powell River

You have taken a 400-year journey through the area we call Powell River, others qathet, all surrounded by the Traditional Territories of the Tla’amin Nation.

From all the stories and documents, they have all played a part in coming together in one place on a beach that many have called home.

For thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the lands and waters surrounding present-day Powell River formed part of the traditional territory of the Tla’amin (ɬaʔamɩn) people, speakers of the ʔayʔajuθəm language. Their territory extended throughout the Powell River watershed, Powell Lake, Malaspina Strait, Desolation Sound, Okeover Inlet, Theodosia Inlet, and surrounding islands. Villages, seasonal camps, canoe routes, fisheries, hunting grounds, cedar harvesting areas, and spiritual places were established throughout the region long before any European chart or survey.

Countless generations of the Tla’amin people maintained extensive trade and family relationships with neighbouring Coast Salish peoples, including the Klahoose, Homalco, K’ómoks, and shíshálh Nations. Canoe travel connected communities throughout the Salish Sea, while marine resources, salmon, shellfish, cedar, and game sustained permanent and seasonal settlements. These connections created one of the most sophisticated maritime cultures on the Northwest Coast.

In 1792, Spanish naval officers Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Cayetano Valdés became the first Europeans to produce detailed charts of the waterways surrounding present-day Powell River. During their expedition, they recorded numerous Spanish names across the coast. These names represented European cartography rather than the original Indigenous names that had existed for countless generations.

Only weeks later, Captain George Vancouver completed his own survey of the same coast, replacing many Spanish names with British ones. Although European maps changed rapidly, Indigenous communities continued to use their own traditional place names and travel routes.

Between 1800 and 1850, European ships became increasingly common along the British Columbia coast through the maritime fur trade and naval exploration. Despite this growing outside presence, Tla’amin families continued to occupy their villages, harvest traditional foods, and travel ancestral canoe routes throughout the Powell River region.

From 1850 to 1871, following the Fraser River Gold Rush and the establishment of the Colony of British Columbia, colonial authorities increasingly asserted control over Indigenous territories. European maps, legal surveys, and land policies gradually replaced Indigenous place names with English names on official documents, although Indigenous communities continued using their own names in daily life.

When British Columbia and the Colony of Vancouver Island joined the Dominion of Canada, everything from 1871 to the 1890s was used to establish the Indian Reserves within portions of Tla’amin territory. These reserves represented only a small fraction of the Nation’s traditional homeland. Throughout this period, fishing, hunting, shellfish harvesting, cedar gathering, and intercommunity travel continued despite increasing colonial settlement and resource development.

During the Late 1800s, government hydrographic surveys, land surveys, and timber assessments documented the forests, rivers, and shoreline of the Powell River region for future industrial development. While these surveys focused on timber and waterpower potential, they largely ignored thousands of years of Indigenous occupation already present throughout the landscape. Land was colonized and sold, and the settling of the area around qathet was happening.

It was the years between 1899 and 1908 that the Industrial interests identified Powell River as one of the most suitable locations on the British Columbia coast for a large pulp and paper operation because of its protected harbour, abundant freshwater, and vast surrounding forests. These same natural advantages had supported Indigenous communities since time immemorial.

In 1909, the construction of the Powell River pulp and paper mill began within the traditional territory of the Tla’amin Nation. The transformation of the landscape into an industrial town marked one of the most significant changes in the region since European contact.

The years between 1910 and 1911 saw a company town rapidly expand as workers, engineers, contractors, and their families arrived from across Canada, the United States, and Europe. New streets, homes, businesses, and industrial infrastructure were constructed beside lands that had long served as Tla’amin travel routes, harvesting areas, and settlement sites.

By 1912, Powell River had become one of British Columbia’s fastest-growing industrial communities. Beneath this new company town, however, remained the much older history of the Tla’amin people, whose connection to the land and waters extended back thousands of years. Although most published maps now displayed British and colonial place names, the original Indigenous names and histories continued to survive within the community and the ʔayʔajuθəm language.

Now that you have taken a 400-year journey through the area we call Powell River. From all the stories and documents, they have all played a part in coming together in one place on a beach that many have called home. This journey is incomparable to the history that came before the Townsite of Powell River.

There is much more to the stories told here; there is much untold history of the Tla’amin Nation, and I encourage you, everyone who took this journey to the Origins of Powell River, to keep taking the journey, together in unity with our neighbours, our friends of the Tla’amin Nation.