The Powell River Company was built on traditional Tla’amin Nation land, called  tiskʷat, which was inhabited by the Tla’amin people long before European contact. Following the sale of Lot 450 and Governmental Surveys, the Tla’amin people were forced to relocate to the Sliammon Creek Village (IR#1). Read more on Lot 450 here. 

In 1885, Alfred Carmichael surveyed possible BC power sites for paper mills and in 1989, Powell River with its water potential (snow melt into Powell Lake) was recommended to the province of British Columbia as a site for a paper mill.

In 1901, the BC Government issued 21-year pulp leases to encourage industrial development in the province. The Canadian Industrial Company then purchased the Powell River leases.

In 1908, Dwight and Anson Brooks, with M.J. Scanlon, from Minnesota, purchased the leases held by the Canadian Industrial Company, A year later, they incorporated the Powell River Company and in 1912, the PR Co. No. 1 Paper Machine produced the first salable newsprint produced in BC. 

Excerpts from the Powell River Mill Story by Bill Thompson, 2001 

In 1908 a paper mill in B.C. was deemed a risky pioneering venture: the population was small; political conditions were unsettled; major markets were far away and there was no Panama Canal. But Dwight F. and Anson Brooks, with M.J. Scanlon, saw possibilities. Brooks and Scanlon had operated a large sawmill in Minnesota since 1901. They purchased the 134,551 acre leases held by the Canadian Industrial Company and, the following year, incorporated the Powell River Paper Company with an initial capital of $ 1 million. 

While the Brooks Scanlon interests were logging in the Stillwater area, 13 miles south of Powell River, Dr. Brooks and M.J. Scanlon recognized the potential of the Powell River and Powell Lake system as a power site. Loggers were already on the scene—the Michigan and Puget Sound Company’s railroad ran through what is now the Powell River Townsite.

Dr. Brooks and his associates secured power rights at Powell River in 1910. Late in that year, construction workers were on the job, clearing the stumps left by loggers and slashing away the thick growth of small timber on the proposed paper mill site. A portable sawmill was installed to cut the trees cleared from the mill site into lumber for construction.

The mill would be a first for B.C. Others had tried, but none had succeeded—not a single roll of newsprint had yet been produced in the province. Machinery and supplies had to be brought in. Thousands of tons of construction materials arrived, and the most urgent need was for a substantial wharf. Its construction was begun immediately and extended several times, being finally completed in 1913. Passengers and freight for the entire district arrived at that dock until the 1st of May 1946, when the Westview wharf was completed.

Throughout 1910 and 1911, and into the spring of 1912, the huge project at Powell River took form: the site was cleared; production buildings were erected; heavy machinery was imported and installed; a power dam was constructed. Powell River had a state-of-the-art newsprint mill.