's first superintendent for Indian Affairs and a chief architect of colonial policies, including the establishment of residential schools in British Columbia and the banning of the Potlatch.

[7] When the British Columbia Credit Unions Act was passed in 1939, a study club organized by local millworkers secured the first charter with a deposit of $48.30.

[12] The subsequent diversification of the local economy led to an increased focus on ecotourism and the arts, in addition to more traditional resources like mining, fishing, and general forestry.

The Powell River area is the current home to the Tla'amin Nation of the Mainland Comox branch of the Coast Salish peoples, who still reside there to this day.

The request comes because city namesake Israel Powell, B.C.’s superintendent of Indian affairs from 1872 to 1889, helped to ensure that the sale of Lot 450, land that included tiyskʷat village, went through, as well as overseeing the removal of children from their homes to be sent to residential schools, and the banning of potlatch, language and other Indigenous customs.

[citation needed] In 2020, Powell River received a $10,000 grant from the government of British Columbia to support tourism in the town.

[15] Nearby, Texada Island with quiet beaches and lakes provides tourism opportunities and is a common weekend destination for the cities' residents.

Both Texada Island and Powell River are popular for fishing, hunting, sailing, power boating camping and remote hiking.

The qathet Museum and Archives depicts the interactions between the pioneers and First Nations as well as showing the tools and items that would have been used by those groups.

In 2023 after many years of work by the qathet Regional Cycling Association, the province of BC granted authority to the club to establish a new parking lot and professionally built climb and descent trails that continue to expand.

[18] The free-access 180 kilometre back-country trail meanders through a wide variety of landscapes, including coastal shorelines, old-growth forest, panoramic mountaintops, pristine creeks and lakes and salmon streams.

Since the Sunshine Coast is similarly isolated from the rest of the BC mainland, vehicles from Vancouver must take two ferries to reach Powell River (across Howe Sound and the Jervis Inlet, if travelling via Sechelt; and across Georgia Strait twice if going via Nanaimo).

The surrounding inlets (fjords) banked by mountainous terrain have made land based road connections to other areas of the BC mainland an expensive proposal.

The Saltery Bay Ferry Terminal is located 23 km south on Highway 101 and provides access to the Sunshine Coast on the Malaspina Sky via route to Earl's Cove near Skookumchuck Narrows.

[26] According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Powell River included:[27] The city has an exceptional Mediterranean climate of the warm-summer type (Köppen: Csb), resulting in the most northerly location in the northern hemisphere, being that in Europe it is 5° further south.

[32] Although the hot season is dry, the vegetation reflects its location west of the mid-latitudes and who can describe the climate differently being situated within a temperate rainforest,[32] Coastal Western Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone the mild winters and high humidity (although it has a defined dry season) it owns a wide zone of growth with firs, cedars and conifers.

[36] The name was a gift to the institution from the Tla’amin Nation Executive Council to acknowledge VIU's "readiness and willingness to participate and engage in meaningful reconciliation.