Peace River Regional District, British Columbia

The Peace River Regional District is a regional district in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The regional district comprises seven municipalities and four electoral areas. Its member municipalities are the cities of Fort St. John and Dawson Creek, the district municipalities of Tumbler Ridge, Chetwynd, Taylor, and Hudson's Hope, and the village of Pouce Coupe. The district's administrative offices are in Dawson Creek.

The regional district also has four regional district electoral areas: B, C, D and E. Six Indian reserves and one Indian settlement are located within the regional district's boundaries, but are not governed by the regional district.

Its modern boundaries were established on October 31, 1987, when the Peace River-Liard Regional District was divided in two. The separated northern territories became the Fort Nelson-Liard Regional District, now the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality.

Located east of the Rockies, the regional district is characterized by rolling hills with grain and cattle farms. About 40% of the province's Agricultural Land Reserve is situated within the regional district. The Peace River flows west-to-east through the middle of the eastern half of the regional district. West of the Rockies the terrain is severe mountain wilderness with few roads and only a handful of inhabitants. Its total land area is 119,200.1 km² (46,023.42 sq mi), the largest regional district in British Columbia in area. (The Stikine Region is larger, but is not a regional district.) The total population reported in the 2006 census was 58,264 with 24,019 private dwellings, up from 55,080 people in 2001.

Municipalities and electoral areas

History

Westward expansion during the 18th and 19th centuries pushed First Nation groups westward and into competition with each other for resources. The Algonkian-speaking Cree had pushed the Athapaskan-speaking Dunneza into the BC portion of the Peace River Country, which pushed the fellow Athapaskan-speaking Sekani into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and beyond. European-Canadian explorers penetrated the area during the 19th century by canoeing along the Peace River and establishing trading posts at Fort St. John and Hudson's Hope. In 1883 the province gave the federal government control over of land, anywhere north the Rocky Mountains, as part of a deal to extend a rail line to Vancouver. After settling land claims with Treaty 8 First Nations, creating the East Moberly Reserve, West Moberly Reserve, Halfway River Reserve, and the St. John Reserve, the government surveyed out its land as the Peace River Block in 1907 and opened it to homesteading in 1912. Pioneer Hector Tremblay, and a few others, helped cut trails and opened stores and lodges to help incoming settlers. The first community of these settlers was established at Pouce Coupe, around Tremblay's cabin. The land was granted back to the province in 1930 after conflicts regarding the water and mineral rights emerged.

The region grew slowly as agricultural settlements spread westward to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and northward to the muskegs of the Liard. In 1932 Pouce Coupe became the first community in the region to incorporate as a village, followed by Dawson Creek in 1936 after a rail line was extended there from Alberta. The 1941 Canadian Census recorded 8,444 people in northeastern BC but a year later the Alaska Highway