An overview of BC North

Pioneer and explorer Simon Fraser and his assistants John Stuart & James McDougall first came to this area in the early years of the 19th century and established Fort George as a fur trading post for the North West Company. It was located near the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako Rivers near the center of the western province of the territory of Canada.

After establishing that post, they continued on their quest to discover a new route to the Pacific. Hearing legends of a fur trading paradise north-west of Fort George on “big water” they took off up the Nechako. Around 60 Km up river, they found a tributary river flowing from the North West. It was heading to the fur rich lands of the Nak’azdli Nation. The Nak’azdli had a permanent village at the mouth of this river, and Simon Fraser built the territories’ first permanent NWC post there in 1806.

The area was rich in furs & the Hudson’s Bay Company quickly took over the post after merging with the NWC. They created a fort to process the furs coming from the Nak’azdli lands. A township called Fort St James sprang up. It soon became the religious and political capitol of the new western territory called “New Caledonia”. It held this status until 1871 when British Columbia was surveyed and named in the Confederation of Canada. In 1807 the HBC built a second northern fort at the trading post near the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser rivers in the traditional territory of the Lheiridli T’enneh. Fort George, complete with settlers and a thriving community had sprung up almost overnight.

Fort George had remained relatively unchanged, overshadowed by Fort St James and largely forgotten by the Barkerville gold rush north of Quesnel (down river). Not too many of the prospectors stopped by Fort George unless they were lost. In 1903, The Grand Trunk Railroad (Later the Canadian National Railway) punched this far west and brought high hopes to the township. People were excited at first. New industry, agriculture and growth in the township of Fort George began. We now had more then furs and logging to supplement our economy.

In 1909, rival land speculation companies developed the townships of South and Central Fort George. South Fort George was built on the Fraser River near the trading post and central Fort George was built 3 Km to the North West on the Nechako River. Both communities flourished and grew; the area had even been described to Brittan as being the future hub of British Columbia. Steamboats shipped materials inland from the ports in Vancouver to the cache on the Nechako and bring furs and other Northern treasures back for international trade. Little townships were popping up all over the place, Central and South Fort George were still the largest of the communities and both believed the Grand Trunk would build in their communities.

The railway purchased land from the Lheiridli T’enneh, disappointed both communities by building its’ own townsite where the station was built beside the Nechaco Cutbanks. A bit of a community sprung up around the Cache & Cottonwood Island, a “delta” at the confluence but was abandoned in the 1960’s. Prince George was getting tired of rescuing citizens from the floods that often occurred on the Nechako.

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Cut from an earlier edition of the Prince George Citizen circa 1978:
At its peak in the 1960s, the Island Cache had 160 homes. River Road was raised, dikes were built, but owners were finally bought out or pushed out after 1972 because city officials got fed up rescuing people
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When the railway was completed in 1914 it signaled the end of the steamboat era in BC. The railway bridge entering Fort George just south of the confluence was designed to allow passage; it is the only draw bridge in western Canada. As trains were much faster, more efficient and less costly, the steamships were “put to pasture” by 1915. There existed 4 major communities in the area; South & Central Fort George, the Millar Addition and the railway’s townsite, called Prince George. The 4 communities merged in 1915 amid World War 1 and became the city of Prince George. When Highway 16 (Trans Canada or Yellowhead Highway) was built to Prince Rupert, It used the rail bridge at Prince George to cross the Fraser. It is the only bridge in North America to have had both Rail and Automobile traffic at the same time. The road was altered in the mid 1980’s and a second bridge (The Yellowhead Bridge) was built for automobiles about a half a Km downriver.

WW2 was hard on the developing community of Prince George. Many of our young men were sent off to fight the growing evil in Europe and many never came home. After the war, many new employment and development opportunities aided the growth and we experienced a steady inflow of new residents.

The US and Canadian Governments were looking serious at Prince George’s strategic location at the “hub” of the Provence. Highways 16 (Trans Canada) and 97 (“Gold rush Trail”) intersect here. The US government used this area to train pilots in Vanderhoof (60 KM west by road up the Nechako) and used Prince George as a supply base for supplies going north when they built the Alaska Highway in the 1940’s. In 1955, they built CFS Baldy Hughes. It was a radar station south west of Prince George on Baldy Mountain.

Transfer of the station to Canadian forces took place in the 1960’s and it became part of the North American Air Defense's (NORAD) “PineTree” line which supplemented the Distant Early Warning or DEW line that protects Canada from aerial attack. CFS Baldy Hughes was decommissioned and shut down in 1988 when the government relaxed after Russia changed its position in the Axis.

The 1960’s also saw growth in our forest industry. In 1964, our first pulp mill, “Prince George Pulp and Paper” was built. It was quickly followed by 2 more; “Northwood Pulp” and “Intercontinental Pulp” were both opened in 1966. As Prince George grew to include the new subdivisions of Spruceland, Lakeland, Perry and Highglen, we needed more homes and schools built. In 1975, Prince George amalgamated and expanded the borders to include the Hart area to the North, Pineview to the south, and the original town of South Fort George to the east. 1981 saw Prince George grow to be the second largest city in BC! Natural Resource exploration in Canada’s north and the start of the Pine Beetle epidemic in BC took place in the 1980’s and 90’s within the Prince George Forest district. This was of major concern as BC’s leading industry at the time was Mining, and Forestry was a close second. The Prince George Forest Region is one of the largest in the Provence!

Prince George was very concerned with the beetle problem; the main industry in the city was forestry and its’ spin off industries. We had just come out of the Spruce Beetle devastation of the late 70’s early 80’s when the Pine Beetle began its’ ravenous crusade through our forests. In the Prince George forest district, aerial studies of the forests in the BC’s North showed “hot-spots” forming in areas of our district. Crews were deployed in the mid to late 80’s until around 1995 to perform various methods of extermination of the Pine Beetle to see what worked best.
Pheromones used on bait trees attracted lots; they would lure the bugs & poison the bait trees. Other crews walked through the wild bush with the poison looking for recently hit trees to kill. They used a special axe to cut a notch in the tree; the bite of the axe would inject a spurt of poison deep into the phloem layer of the tree which spread the agent through the tree’s “circulatory system”. This method was called Hack & Squirt.

Still another form of beetle extermination was that was tested in the late 80’s was called “Crash and Burn”. Crews would cut down a tree, start a fire at the stump and carry the tree back to the fire and burn all the bugs in the dead of winter. This method was very effective with one bad side effect; the “bug fires” would burn under the ground and spark forest fires in affected areas come the next summer.

Meanwhile, Natural Resource exploration in Canada’s North had discovered a wealth of oil, Diamonds and other resources in the areas to the north of Prince George which is helping to evolve towns like Ft St John which might grow to become a large city soon.
Sometime just before the close of the 20th century, we lost control of the once isolated problem of the beetles. Our majestic green pine forests from the Pacific to the Rockies were turned to fury seas of red and grey. In around 2003, the Beetle was reported east of the Rockies in Alberta. Nary was a pine missed in BC, even domestic pines were affected. There were fears of the beetle mutating and developing a taste for Spruce! In 2003, the former BC Rail line which runs north / south across the province and intersects the CN (Via) rail line near Prince George was sold to “Via” rail. This paved the way to develop a direct 3 day rail link to the US East in Chicago, Illinois. The future awaits us, we are all traveling forward through time.

With the North passage opening up due to global warming (providing a shorter route from the east to the west), it is expected that Prince Rupert will become a port rivaling Vancouver in size. It is now a small city, Fishing was their major industry but environmental restrictions put on in the 1990's all but killed that industry. Prince Rupert is already connected to Prince George by rail and road and it is a very scenic route by both.

Plans to create an “Inland Port” for rail and truck shipping in Prince George are underway in 2008. Highway 16 West is set to be a 4 lane highway from Prince Rupert to Prince George, and then from PG to Vancouver on Highway 97 South. Via rail now owns both the North / South & the East / West rail lines and ships to the USA on a 3 day schedule.

Prince George has no choice but to grow and the future at this point looks optimistic. We are mandated to have the most accessible city in British Columbia by 2010. With many sidewalks and walkways becoming accessible and new construction is bylawed to be designed accessible, we should almost meet our goals in that department! It is a priority as we live up to our demands of the position of Medical center for northern BC in the future!

We need to design our personal spaces and wellbeing too..  We all stand the same chance of becoming dependent on something or someone due to an accident or illness.  Age, race, credit rating & social bearing has no defense. At the very least, everyone should be able to go home at night.  Prince George is making an effort to recognize and correct the access problems for someone with a mobility or vision problem; it is something we can all do to help ourselves and others!