11,000 years ago - There were aboriginals hunting on the prairies on what is now Canada.

2005 BC - Archaeological evidence points to Sliammon being in existence for 4000 - 4500 years.

1000 - 1500 AD - Approximately 6 - 10 million people inhabiting North America. 250,000 in what is now Canada. The two most populous areas were the Windsor - Montreal Corridor and the Coast of B.C.

1763 - Royal Proclamation recognizes people as ‘nations or tribes’ and acknowledges that they continue to possess traditional territories until they are ‘ceded to or purchased’ by the Dominion.

March 29, 1778 - Captain James Cook arrives on the west coast of Vancouver Island at Nootka Sound.

June 25, 1792 - The ships of Captain George Vancouver, along with the Spanish ships, the Sutil and the Mexicana sailed past what is now Powell River, and Vancouver noted the ‘small brook’ where Powell Lake flows out to the sea, and named one of the islands ‘Harwood’ after Dr. Edward Harwood, a royal surgeon at that time with Captain Bligh on the Providence.

July 2, 1792 - Two surveying crews from the Vancouver ships ‘Chatham’ and ‘Discovery’ go ashore on Harwood Island coming into contact with the ancestors of the people of Sliammon.

1841 - Herman Merivale, who later became permanent undersecretary at the Colonial Office in London, outlined four alternatives for dealing with Native People:

• Extermination
• Slavery
• Insulation
• Amalgamation.

1850-1854 - Douglas Treaties: Under instruction from British Crown, Douglas signs 14 treaties on Vancouver Island. Process discontinued due to lack of funds from England and various other factors.

Post 1854 Treaty making was abandoned in the west in British Columbia.

1862 - Smallpox epidemic kills approximately one of every three aboriginal people in the province.

1870’s - First recorded contact with the Oblate Missionaries. Services were held at both the mouth of Powell Lake and at Grace Harbour.

1871 - British Colombia enters Confederation and the federal government given responsibility for Indians.

1873 - the Federal government forms the Northwest Mounted Police to attend to conflicts between the Natives and the white settlers

1875 - the Federal government made it an offense for any person making an ‘Indian or Chinaman’ a registered voter, liable to a punishment of $50.00 or one month in jail.

1876 - Federal Indian Act sets up a system of Indian bands and reserves and establishes wide range of controls over aboriginal population. Allows only those people registered under the Indian Act to live on reserves. Provides that reserves can only be reduced in size with the consent of all adult males in the band and encourages aboriginal people to voluntarily give up special status as registered Indians.

1876 - subsection 24 of section 91 of the B.N.A. Act gave the Federal government authority to legislate on matters relating to ‘Indians and lands reserved for Indians.’ During the next three decades the government began to survey Indian reserve boundaries and Indians throughout B.C. were forced onto reserves. Settlers could pre-empt 320 acres and could buy more land if they could afford it; reserve lands were no more than 10 acres per head. In this manner Indian lands were slowly claimed. As a result of legislation passed in 1872, Indians were not allowed to buy land or get free land grants like the white man.

August 28, 1878 - R.P. Rithet granted lot 450 which later turns out to be the municipality of Powell River. Lot 450 was totaled 15 000 acres and was surveyed by R.C. Cridge.

1879 - The six reserves of Sliammon are issued by the provincial government.

1880’s - European population surpasses aboriginal population for the first time.

1880 - The ‘small brook’ seen by Captain George Vancouver was named by Captain Orelebar of the HMS Rocket. Powell River was named in honour of Captain Israel Powell. Dr. Powell held the office of B.C.’s first Indian Commissioner from 1872-1889.

1884 - Indian Act amended to outlaw cultural and religious ceremonies such as the potlatch. Prohibition eventually expanded so that most gatherings could be called potlatches.

December 08, 1888 - Sliammon meets with Malcolm Gilbert Sproat of the Indian Reserve Commission one and one-half miles off Harwood, to discuss the situation of the Sliammon allocated reserves. The traditional village site at Powell River was denied them, when he defined several reserves for Sliammon

July16, 1892 - Arthur Milton of Vancouver granted a permit under the Rivers and Streams Act of 1890 to clear and remove obstructions from the mouth of Powell Lake for the purpose of rafting and driving logs

1894 - legislation was passed regarding compulsory school attendance of Indian children. It was felt that an ‘Indian could not go out from school, making his own way and compete with the white man because he neither had the physical, mental nor moral get up to enable him to compete.’ Sliammon children were removed from their families and homes en masse and placed in residential schools. Threats of incarceration were used to dissuade any Sliammon person who might protest. This resulted in the disintegration of the extended family; parents were alienated from their roles as providers and protectors, grand-parents were robbed of their function as teachers and children suffered the humiliation of being beaten for speaking their native tongue or attempting to practice their culture. These children were also segregated according to sex and in some instances were sexually abused by teachers and priests.

1909 - Powell River Paper Co. incorporated.

1912 - The federal and provincial government set up the McKenna/Macbride Commission to review the sizes and locations of Indian Reserves in B.C.. This Commission lasted from 1913 - 1916 and visited First Nations in B.C..

September 1919 - Huge fire destroys the original village of Sliammon and threatens townsite of Powell River.

1927 - 1951 - it was an offense to raise money for ‘land claims.’

Late 1960’s - The federal government introduces ‘white paper,’ Ottawa’s answer to improving the social situation of Canada’s Indians, which was to abolish treaties, reserves and status. The paper achieved the opposite effect.

April 17,1982 - Patriation of the Canadian Constitution which affirmed "The existing aboriginal and treaty rights are hereby recognized and affirmed."

1986 - There are approximately 550 Native bands in Canada. Most reserves in Canada, unlike those in the united States, are very small. The reserves in Canada total 2,428,200 acres. The largest reserve in Canada is the Blood Reserve in Alberta which is 1,386 sq. km. and a population of 4,600.

April 19, 1994 - Sliammon First Nation enters the B.C. Treaty process to settle its land question