The early inhabitants of the area were Carrier Indians, called "Babine" by the early explorers, referring to the distended ornamented lower lips of the native women.

The village of Granisle was founded in the late 1960s and early 1970s on the shores of Babine Lake as a home for the families of the miners working in the nearby copper mines.

After the last mine shut down in 1992, the community transformed into a retirement destination.

In 1971 workmen excavating in an open-pit copper mine at Babine Lake discovered the partly articulated skeleton of a Columbian Mammoth.

Radiocarbon dates indicate that the animal sank in sticky pond deposits about 34,000 years ago.