POWELL RIVER

district municipality, southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is located on the east side of the Strait of Georgia, 80 miles (130 km) northwest of Vancouver. Named for Israel Wood Powell, who was Indian superintendent for British Columbia in the 1870s, the settlement developed at the mouth of the Powell River as a pulp-and-paper-milling centre after 1910. In 1955 the town of Powell River and several surrounding communities amalgamated to form a district municipality of 16 square miles (41 square km). The district is one of the world's largest producers of newsprint, its industry served by hydroelectric plants on the Powell and Lois rivers. Pop. (1991) 12,991. river rising in Wise county, southwestern Virginia, U.S., and flowing southwest through Big Stone Gap in the Cumberland Plateau into Tennessee to enter the Clinch River at Norris Dam, 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Knoxville, Tenn. Approximately half of its total length of about 150 miles (240 km) is now an extension of Norris Reservoir, impounded by the dam. Originally called Beargrass River, it was probably renamed for Ambrose Powell, an explorer of the 1750s whose name was found carved on a tree near its bank.