Peace River South.
3 candidates, one seat.

The District of Tumbler Ridge says the mountains and valleys of its area have been home to Indigenous peoples for at least 10,000 years. UNESCO's page on the Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark places the geopark on the traditional and ancestral territories of the Tse'khene, Dunne-za, Saulteau and Nêhiyawak (Cree) First Nations. The district's own history page gives the meaning of two of those names. Dunne-Za means "real people" and Tse'Khene means "people of the rocks". It adds that Cree families came west during the fur trade and made a community at Kelly Lake.

Saulteau First Nations tell their own origin on their website. In the mid 1800s several Nahkawē leaders received visions that told them to lead their people west, to a lake below the Twin Mountains. On the way they joined Cree and Stoney people. They reached Moberly Lake, and the Dunne-Zaa, who had lived there for millennia, welcomed them. The Nation says its name comes from the French word Saulteurs, which means "people of the rapids".

The Encyclopedia of British Columbia describes West Moberly Lake as a Dunne-za community at the west end of Moberly Lake, 20 km north of Chetwynd. It says Moberly Lake is named for Henry Moberly, who lived in a cabin there from 1865 to 1868.

The text of Treaty No. 8 is dated 21 June 1899 and was first made at Lesser Slave Lake. Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada publishes it. The BC government says Saulteau First Nations are a signatory to the treaty signed in 1899. Saulteau First Nations say that in 1914 the relatives of their present members adhered to Treaty No. 8 when they accepted treaty annuities at Moberly Lake. A reserve was surveyed at the east end of the lake, and Canada set it aside in 1918.

The BC Assembly of First Nations lists West Moberly First Nations as adhering to Treaty 8 in 1914 as part of the Hudson Hope band. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia says two bands were created from that band in 1977, and the BC Assembly of First Nations names them West Moberly Lake and Halfway River. At midsummer West Moberly marks Treaty Days to commemorate the 1899 signing.

Kelly Lake Cree Nation says its people are the As'in'î'wa'chî Ni'yawak, descendants of the Cree and Beaver (Dunne-za) peoples, and that they speak the Woods Cree dialect. The Nation formed a legal entity under the Society Act in 1996. Métis Nation British Columbia announced on 16 October 2021 that its Governing Assembly had voted on 26 September to accept the Métis Community Society of Kelly Lake as its 39th chartered community. The announcement says Kelly Lake was founded in 1910 by Métis from Jasper House, and that each family claimed a 160 acre plot.

The South Peace Historical Society's account of the Peace River Block starts with an Act about the Island Railway, the Graving Dock and the railway lands of the province. It passed the provincial legislature on 19 December 1883 and the Dominion House on 21 March 1884. Under it Canada received 3,500,000 acres in the north-east of British Columbia. The government announced that this land would be open for free homesteading in the early months of 1912. On 20 February 1930 an agreement between Canada and the province transferred the Block back to British Columbia.

Settlers came in quickly after 1912. Mr. and Mrs. Lea H. Miller, with their five boys and three girls, travelled the Edson Trail and reached their homesteads north of the Pouce Coupe Prairie on 5 May 1912. BC Geographical Names says the Rolla post office opened on 1 December 1913, and that L.H. Miller, its first postmaster, named it for Rolla, Missouri. The Pouce Coupe post office had opened on 1 August 1912. The Village of Pouce Coupe says the main influx of settlers came from 1912 to 1914 and that the first three schools in the Peace River Block opened in 1915.

The City of Dawson Creek says the geologist George Mercer Dawson was sent out in 1879 to gather information about a possible route for the Canadian Pacific Railway. The first regular passenger train reached Dawson Creek over the Northern Alberta Railway at 6:30 pm on 15 January 1931. A charter of incorporation as a village was granted on 26 May 1936, when the population had passed 500. Pouce Coupe received its railway in 1931 and was incorporated as a village on 6 January 1932. BC Geographical Names gives two explanations of the name Pouce Coupe. One names Pooscapee, a Beaver trapper, and the other a Sekani chief who cut his thumb, and the entry says linguistic experts dispute the first.

In 1939 refugees from the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia settled at Tomslake. The Peace River Block Daily News reported in July 1999 that 518 of them arrived between 8 April and 28 July 1939. They were anti-Nazi Sudeten German Social Democrats who fled after the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia says they occupied 9,560 ha of bush land that belonged to the railway colonization companies. The place was first called Tate Creek and took the name Tomslake from a nearby lake when a post office opened in 1948. The newspaper says 46 of the refugees enlisted in the Canadian armed forces during the war.

Work on the Alaska Highway began in March 1942. The City of Dawson Creek says its population was 750 and that thousands of civilian workers and soldiers arrived almost overnight. Parks Canada says that by the end of 1943 Dawson Creek and Fairbanks, Alaska, were linked by 1523 miles of all-weather road. On 13 February 1943 an explosion destroyed a whole block in the centre of Dawson Creek, and the city says merchants then rebuilt with more permanent buildings. Dawson Creek was incorporated as a city in 1958.

The Hart Highway, begun in 1945, was completed on 1 July 1952. It is named for John Hart, who was premier from 1941 to 1947. The Pacific Great Eastern Railway reached Chetwynd in 1957. The District of Chetwynd says 3000 people gathered in March 1958 to welcome the first train from Vancouver. On 1 July 1959 a ceremony and parade dedicated the new name of Chetwynd, for Ralph Chetwynd, the Minister of Railways, who died in April 1957. The town had been called Little Prairie, which BC Geographical Names says translates a traditional name of the area. Chetwynd was incorporated as a village in 1962 and as a district municipality in 1983.

The District of Tumbler Ridge names Kate Edwards, a widow, as the first permanent settler in its area. She moved into the Wolverine Valley in 1921, at age 51, to establish a ranch. In 1981 representatives of Denison Mines, Teck Corporation, the Government of BC and the Japanese steel industry signed an agreement that let the Northeast Coal Development go ahead. Within three years the town, its roads and services and two mines were built from nothing.

The Encyclopedia of British Columbia describes Tumbler Ridge as a company town incorporated on 9 April 1981, and says its name refers to rock slides on a formation north of town. The district says the Quintette mine shut in August 2000 and the Bullmoose mine in April 2003. Coal mining returned with the opening of Western Coal's Wolverine Mine in 2005. The town marked its 40th anniversary in 2021.

UNESCO designated the Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark in 2015. Its page says the region holds evidence of dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, 173 to 66 million years ago, when swampy coastal plains and river deltas were laying down coal.

On 21 February 2020 Canada, British Columbia, Saulteau First Nations and West Moberly First Nations signed a partnership agreement for the central group of southern mountain caribou. The agreement runs for 30 years from the date the last party signed. Its shared objective is to stabilize and grow the herd to levels that are self-sustaining and that support traditional Aboriginal harvesting.