Powell Lake is a
lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
in the northern
Sunshine Coast Sunshine Coast may refer to:
* Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
**Sunshine Coast Region, a local government area of Queensland named after the region
**Sunshine Coast Stadium
* Sunshine Coast (British Columbia), geographic subregion of the Br ...
region of
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, adjacent to the city of
Powell River, which sits on the low rise of land forming a natural dam between the lake and the
Strait of Georgia
The Strait of Georgia (french: Détroit de Géorgie) or the Georgia Strait is an arm of the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and the extreme southwestern mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada and the extreme northwestern mainland coast ...
. The lake flows to the ocean through
Powell River and features
Goat Island, a large mountainous island. It serves as a reservoir for a small hydroelectric generating station which was built to serve the city's paper mill, and also as a water supply for that paper mill.
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
*
List of lakes of British Columbia
This is an incomplete list of lakes of British Columbia, a province of Canada.
Larger lake statistics
*
List of lakes
1
* 101 Mile Lake
* 103 Mile Lake
* 105 Mile Lake
* 108 Mile Lake
A
* Adams Lake
* Alouette Lake
* Alta Lake ( ...
References
*
Sunshine Coast (British Columbia)
Lakes of British Columbia
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