Winter recreation options include cross country ski trails, snowmobiling and ice fishing.

The origin of the name PETAWAWA is lost in antiquity, but legend has it that it is an Algonquian Native-Aboriginal word pronounced PETWEWE.

In another legend it is said that the area was named after an indigenous woman who inhabited the banks of the Petawawa River and lived to the age of 115 years.

In that same year "A" and "B" Batteries of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, commenced the first of many marches to Camp Petawawa for summer training from their permanent station in Kingston, Ontario.

Most of these men were civilian internees, the majority of them Ukrainians and other Europeans who came to the Dominion from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and so were categorized as "enemy aliens" at the outbreak of the war.

At the same time Canada Car and Foundry Company had developed three inch shells and were being tested at the camp by Russian artillery.

The prisoners, in effect forced labourers, were instrumental in helping clear roads and timber opening up an artillery range and so making these tests possible.

The Garrison is also home to a marked grave of a member of the Chinese Labour Corps, Chou Ming Shan, whom died in transit in France in 1917 and buried at the base.

During the next few years construction continued in order to accommodate more regular units, married quarters and schools for the soldiers' dependents.

2 Combat Group combined with the Canadian Airborne Regiment at CFB Petawawa to form the Special Service Force.

The Special Service Force was officially re-designated as 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group by a Ministerial Order signed on 24 April 1995.

This decision to re-organize and re-equip the formation was due to current emphasis in Canadian defence policy on general-purpose capabilities.

In 2021, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, the base deployed medical military personnel to Cross Lake, to help organize a response to an outbreak in the Pimicikamak population.

[9] Garrison Petawawa is the home of the 4th Canadian Division Support Group and 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, which is made up of:[1] 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron and 450 Tactical Helicopter Squadron are based here and operate their own helipads at Petawawa Heliport.

[11][12] The base motto is, in the eastern Anishinaabe language, endazhe kinamandowa chimaganishak (or fully vocalized as endazhi-gikinoo'amawindowaa zhimaaganishag).

The Garrison Petawawa Military Museums "are dedicated to the remembrance of our military past and recognition of the Canadian Armed Forces' service to humanity, through the education of our youth, the fostering of identity, and the nurturing of understanding, the promotion of spirit de corps and the preservation of our collective community heritage.