Powell Lake (British Columbia)
Name origin
The lake was named for Israel Wood Powell, Indian Commissioner for British Columbia 1872–1889.
Indigenous history
"According to John Hackett, Hegus (“Chief,” in the Sliammon language) of the Tla’amin Nation, the Tla’amin people had, at that time, a main village called Tis’kwat located in that exact spot. But the people started seeing European settlers coming into their territory, setting up camps and eventually starting to log and extract resources from the area." However, any evidence will likely be found under the current waters of Powell Lake, since it was only a river system meandering between mountainous valleys before the dam at the river head was built to provide power for the timber mill and a floating highway to deliver logs from cutting areas in the adjacent mountains. One view is that the original Powell River was a salmon breeding ground before settlement and logging interests dammed the waters use, suggesting ecological, cultural and geographical desirability for native settlement on the life giving river close to the ocean.
However, there is no doubt that one time Powell Lake was once an ocean inlet as it contains ancient salt water at its deepest points, some of which are more than 500m. Geologists posit that the mouth of Powell Lake rebounded with the recession of glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age, creating a fresh water barrier system, which led to the destruction of its salmon runs and its becoming a fresh water lake. If there were indigenous communities based on salmon runs in that system, that must have been many thousands of years ago.
See also
References
- ^ Smith, Andrea (26 Nov 2021). "Powell River Wrestles with Changing Its Colonial Name". The Tyee. Retrieved 19 January 2022.