WARDNER

Wardner’s population: 195

Wardner is a small community located on the Crowsnest branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway, 35 kilometres southeast of Cranbrook, but off of the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3).

During the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 1900s, the Crowsnest Pass Lumber Company operated a large sawmill and business here boomed. It had several amentities including hotels, schools, post office, and golf course. Unfortunately fires in the 1930s, highway improvements in the late-1940s and closing of the mill in 1962 due to lack of timber, forced the once-booming town to eventually lose most of its population to other popular centers in the region like Fernie and Cranbrook.

Construction of the Libby Dam in Montana in 1973, which in turn created Lake Koocanusa, the railway had no choice but to re-route their tracks through Fort Steele. Furthermore, the highway also had to be re-routed on a bridge over the Kootenay River in 1970 to prevent flooding. As a result, many passing motorists often will bypass Wardner on their way to either Cranbrook or Fernie as Wardner is about 2 kilometres south off the highway. Although Wardner remained unscathed to some extent, many nearby communities weren't so lucky as they were completely flooded; among them were Waldo and Krag.

The Libby Dam was built as a joint venture between Canada and the United States for two reasons 1) to eliminate spring flooding of the Kootenay River and 2) to provide hydroelectric power.

Wardner is named after James Wardner, a railway and mining industries promoter who founded many cities in Canada and the United States including that of Wardner, Idaho.

Lake Koocanusa's name comes from a concatenation of the first three letters for KOOtenay River, CANada, plus USA. It was named in a contest won by a resident of Rexford, Montana. 

HANCEVILLE

HANCEVILLE
Is a settlement located 90 kilometers west of Williams Lake along Highway #20 in the eastern limits of the Chilcotin region of British Columbia. It is named for both Tom Hance who back in 1875, founded the TH Ranch and back in 1889 set up a post office and just shortly afterwards a store and a small place for travelers to stop was also set up here. Later before the First World War (WWI), the post office became known as Lee’s Corner, where Norman Lee, a cattle rancher, attempted and tried to push and ride his herd through 2,500 kilometers of wild through thick and thin but was completely unsuccessful however he did survive the whole ordeal, his book “Klondike Cattle Drive” explains this story. Hanceville is notorious for its spectacular views of the surrounding area with landscapes and lava formations to explore like plunging canyons and raging rivers to explore, as well as the main gateway to the resort areas of Big Creek and Nemiah Valley, which have many outdoor activities to do like horseback riding and have many camping opportunities. Hanceville’s only economic activity relies strictly on that of ranching.

HANCEVILLE’S POPULATION: 68

VERNON

Is a city located in the North Okanagan Valley on the north end of Okanagan Lake and situated between 2 other lakes (Kalamalka and Swan) as well as the junction of Highways #6 and Highway #97.

Fur traders began using the west side of Okanagan Lake as a transport route from the lower Columbia River after 1811. Between 1862 and 1900, thousands of hectares of land were pre-empted and worked at cattle raising. In 1861, Luc Girouard, who was the first settler in what is now present-day Vernon, built a cabin beside a spot on BX Creek that the aboriginal called nintle-moos-chin meaning “jumping-over-place”. Vernon became a city on December 30, 1892 and is named in honor of George Vernon (1843-1911), former Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia.

Vernon relies on tourism, agriculture (especially with fruit-growing), forestry and manufacturing as important factors in its economy. Okanagan College, the Okanagan’s largest post-secondary education institution, offers over 50,000 students with programs, with well over 120 programs of degree and diploma programs. In recent years, Silver Star Mountain is gaining popularity with tourists, as well as dedicated skiing enthusiasts as an excellent seasonal downhill skiing destination.

The Vernon Vipers of the British Columbia Hockey League play their games in the city at the Wesbild Centre (formerly known as the Vernon Multiplex), a 5,000-seat multi-purpose recreational facility located in downtown. Founded in 1961 as the Vernon Jr. Canadians, the Vipers are one of the one of the most successful established hockey teams in Canada. They have won 9 Mowat Cups (BCHL Champions), 6 Doyle Cups (BCHL vs. the Alberta Junior Hockey League champions), and 4 Royal Bank Cup (national championships).

Vernon’s population: 31,817

MIDWAY

^{Midway Is a small village, situated on the Kettle River, just 13 kilometers west of Greenwood in the West Kootenay Region of British Columbia.}

^{Midway was settled in 1889 by Louis Eholt, a rancher from Luxembourg, whom built a ranch in where Midway is located today. Prior to 1889, Eholt's ranch was used for prospectors who were using the property as a stopping and travelling point along the Dewdney Trail, to transport gold when it was discovered in Rock Creek in the late 1850s. In 1892, Eholt sold his ranch to a company from Montreal, Quebec in the hopes of building a smelter here.}

^{Originally known as Boundary City, for its location near the Canada/United States border (about a 3 minute drive), Midway was finally laid out in 1893 and during the 1890s mining boom, its population had grown to almost 6,000 people. Midway then became the western terminus of the Columbia and Western Railway when it was pushed through here in 1898 to Castlegar, thus making it a small shipping point for the distribution of ore deposits of iron.}

^{The town's name was changed from Boundary City to Midway in 1894 to avoid confusion with Boundary Falls, a town located about 5 kilometers east of here.}

^{Depending on who you talk to, there are several theories and stories on how Midway got its name. 1) Midway is named for its halfway location from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, fitting, since its motto is “Between the Mountains and the Sea”, this one appears to be the most popular one. 2) Midway also lies halfway between Hope and Wild Horse Creek, near present-day Fort Steele on the old Dewdney Trail. 3) Halfway point for frieght wagons travelling between Fairview, near Oliver and Marcus, Washington and where Eholt's Ranch was used to change horses.}

^{Midway is well known for being “Mile 0” of the Kettle Valley Railway, a popular railway that ran passenger train service via stream locomotive, from here to Hope from 1915 to 1964. However, due to financial issues, passenger train service on the Kettle Valley Railway ended in January of 1964 thus converting the former station, located on the western outskirts of town into a museum. The railway was then converted into a multi-use recreational rail trail, for hikers and cyclists, as part of the Trans-Canada Trail.}

^{Midway does not really have much of a “downtown core”. It is centralized around several streets including Palmerston, Dominion, Fifth and Hartland Avenues as well as Florence Street, where the 1905-built Kettle River Inn is located on.}

^{You will also find a hardware store, grocery store, gas station, motel, and a campground among other amentites.}

^{Midway's main industries are forestry, agriculture and tourism. Forestry has had a major financial impact on the economy of Midway. The town's main sawmill was forced to shut down operations in 2007 when the company that owned it, went bankrupt. Fortunately it was revived back to life in 2011 when it was bought by a local ownership group.}

^{Midway's population: 678}

DELTA

DELTA
Is a major suburb of Vancouver as a well as a district municipality. It is bordered on the south by the Canada/United States border and on the east side by Surrey, on the west side by Georgia Strait, to the north by the mighty Fraser River by the north. Delta became when 2 pioneers, Brothers Thomas and William Ladner arrived and began doing farm work in 1868, and the community was soon built by the Fraser River. Delta’s major population centers are Ladner, Tsawwassen, in the southwest of the district and also North Delta in which Surrey has strong links to. Agriculture and farming play a huge part in Delta’s economy. The George Massey Tunnel, which has made Delta more accessible to automobile traffic, was built in 1958 over the Fraser River, linking Delta with Richmond and making Delta’s population grow even more. BC Ferries Corporation has a ferry terminal at Tsawwassen which takes passengers to Vancouver Island and Victoria. Delta is also served by an airport which serves Charter and private flights to nearby communities. Burns Bog and the Reifel Bird Sanctuary are two of Delta’s major attractions in addition to being major environmental-sensitive areas. Delta is also served by the Roberts Bank Superport which ships wheat and coal to the United States. Delta is named after a nearby river delta that was formed hundreds of years ago by the river's silt. Delta was incorporated as a district on November 10th, 1879 and has remained that way ever since.

DELTA’S POPULATION: 96,723

GREENWOOD

GREENWOOD
Is a small city, situated in the Boundary/Kootenay region of British Columbia. Despite having a population of less than 1,000 people, Greenwood is considered a city and is notorious for being Canada’s smallest city. Incorporated in 1897, it was founded in 1895 when although 4 years prior in 1891, gold-copper ore was discovered here by a group of prospectors. Robert Wood built a general store in 1895 what is now where the community sits today. Greenwood, with a population of around 3,000 back then, used to be the main town in the Kootenay/Boundary mining and smelting district during the early-20th century with many services and business including its own newspaper, hotels, opera house to serve the many of the area’s surrounding mines. Many buildings here retell the history of the area and date back to the late-1800s to early-1900s. After World War 1 (WWI) ended, the industry of mining fell on hard times because of increased and raised copper prices forced the closure of the mines and Greenwood almost became an instant ghost town because of it. New life was eventually breathed into the community when during the Second World War (WWII), many Japanese Canadians were interned here when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbour in the morning of December 7, 1941 and at the same time powered the United States into World War II. Many of the internees still live here to this day. Although some believe the town is named after Greenwood Village in Colorado, the logical reason for the basis of the name is that from the fore mentioned first settler; Robert Wood and the fact there is an abundance of green and luscious trees in the surrounding area. Greenwood is now a forestry town and there is also a small ski resort nearby at Phoenix Ski Hill, which in turn for a time was also a old mining town in its own right, located off of the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3) between Greenwood and Grand Forks, about a 20-minute drive east.

GREENWOOD’S POPULATION: 625

CAWSTON

CAWSTON

^{Is a small village on the Similkameen River, just 5 kilometers east of Keremeos and 43 kilometers just west from Osoyoos on the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3).}

^{The history of Cawston dates back to the 1860s, when a local rancher by the name of Francis Xavier “Frank” Richter began raising cattle. A mountain pass located along the Crowsnest Highway between here and Osoyoos is named after him.}

^{Agriculture and cultivating began before World War one (WWI) and still remains the main economic benefactor. A post office was established here in 1916.}

^{Home to several ranches as well as hobby farms, there are also wineries and vineyards as well as two fruit packing plants; one of them being organic.}

^{The community is surrounded by hillsides with semi-arid terrain including plants that thrive in desert climates especially sagebrush and cacti. The climate is enjoyable and warm enough in the summertime that Cawston is home to many fruit stands.}

^{The area is popular with outdoor enthusiasts and hikers due to many lakes, mountains and rivers in the surrounding area.} 

^{Unincorporated, Cawston takes its name from R.L. Cawston, a pioneer rancher who first settled in the area in the 1860s and whose home used to be where the Hudson’s Bay Company operated a store here in 1860.} 

CAWSTON’S POPULATION: 973 

HEDLEY

HEDLEY

Is a community nestled at the base of Nickel Plate Mountain in the Similkameen Valley, 37 kilometers east of Princeton on the Crowsnest Highway (Highway #3).

Once inhabited by the Similkameen First Nations people, who called this community,” Sna-za-ist” meaning Striped Rock Place so named because of its location near colored and striped cliffs on both sides of the Similkameen Canyon. In 1897, gold was discovered and about a year later led to the community’s beginnings. Throughout the early 1900s, it boomed as a huge mining camp where about 50,000 ounces of gold were produced at Nickel Plate Mountain. The mines also produced the first extraction of Arsenic of its kind in British Columbia, twelve thousand nine hundred and forty-one tonnes of it were extracted from the Nickle Plate Mine.

By 1906, the community had 5 banks, its own newspaper (the Hedley Gazette), and several hotels and even was big enough to have its own 9-hole golf course. Named after a former manager of the Hall smelter in Nelson by the name of Robert Hedley, the town possessed a population of nearly 1,000 citizens. In 1909, the Great Northern Railroad, was built in order to tow gold out of the mountain. By the late-1930s the Mascot Mine was opened and produced about 4,000,000 pounds of copper and the gold production increased to about 2.5 million ounces (nowadays worth about $50,000,000 annually). In addition the mines also produced 590,000 ounces of silver during their lifespan.

Mining continued in Hedley until the 1950s, when the metal extraction was petered out and exhausted due to decreasing ore production and to add insult to injury between 1956 and 1957, there were several fires that destroyed many of Hedley’s buildings and the town’s population began a steady decline towards the 1960s. The community however, has survived and is now a retirement community and local service center for the Similkameen Valley region.

During the 1990s, the British Columbia Government surveyed the mine site and developed them into a historic site which is one of several sites of historical value in the community, among them are a historical cemetery, a miner’s cottage that dates back to 1904, and a log barn that also houses a blacksmith shop.

Hedley’s population: 402

PRINCETON

Is a small town situated at the junction of the Similkameen and Tulameen Rivers and at the junction of Highways #3 (Crowsnest) and #5A, at the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, 136 kilometers east of Hope.

Princeton was originally known as Vermillion Forks for the red ochre on the banks of the Tulameen River, used by the local First Nations people, who used it to make paintings and for trading purposes.

During the 1840s, several teams of miners, fur traders, and settlers used the community to connect and establish several trails from here to the Pacific Coast. In 1859, John Fall Allison, who Allison Pass, about 40 kilometers west of here on the Crowsnest Highway is named after, established a ranch and year later, when Canada’s governor at the time, James Douglas laid out a townsite, he chose the name “Princeton” in honor of Prince of Wales’ visit to eastern Canada in 1860.

During World War 2 (WWII), the Kettle Valley Railway linked Princeton to Vancouver, and near the end of the 1940s the Hope-Princeton Highway; (a stretch of the Crowsnest Highway between Princeton and Hope) was built making this small town of about 3,000 completely dependent on automobile traffic.

Princeton was once a very booming community with copper, gold, coal that was all mined in the town’s early days. Copper mining was revived in mid-August of 2011 after the town will open a new open-pit copper mine near the outskirts of town. In the first 12 years of operation, this mine will produce well over 100 million tonnes of copper annually at a cost of $450,000,000 and employ about 250 people. When the copper concentrate is mined it will be trucked to the Port of Vancouver and then shipped to Mitsubishi Materials Corporation in Japan where it will be melted down into “actual copper”. This mine is expected to give Princeton a significant population and housing boom within the next few years. 

Logging along with tourism, are the major economic resources. Princeton became famous, for infamous train robber, Bill Miner who robbed numerous trains belonging to the Canadian Pacific Railway, and whom lived in this area around 1904.

Princeton’s climate is marred by four different and diverse seasons, warm and dry summers, cool and mild winters. During the summer months, the nights cool off impressively to be comfortablly enough for sleeping. The Cascade Mountains in the valley block signifacant amounts of precipitation from falling especially both in summer and winter, for this reason Princeton obtains an annual estimate of 356 millimeters of precipitaion a year. On the other hand, the high area surrounding the community does receive a fair amount of snow during the winter months and driving with caution is recommended especially along Highway #3 from Princeton to east of Osoyoos due to the fact there are 4 mountain passes (Anarchist Summit, Sunday Summit, Allison Pass and the Richter Pass) along this stretch of highway. Winters here average about -10 degrees Celsius and summer temperatures average about 25 degrees Celcius. Moreover, in the summertime with warm days and cool evenings, its common for Princeton to get an occasional thunderstorm from time to time in addition with the dry barren hills that surround the town, a forest fire is also not out of the question.

For the traveler, Princeton’s downtown is somewhat small but it does center around several blocks of Bridge Street and Vermillion Avenue (its two main downtown streets) as well as some businesses along Highway #3 (Crowsnest Highway) including a couple of fast-food restaurants, couple of gas stations and a tourism information center.

Princeton’s population: 2,677

NELSON

NELSON

Is a small city located on the west end of Kootenay Lake, 45 kilometers northeast of Castlegar and 660 kilometers east of Vancouver.

Born in 1887, it was first known as Salisbury, after Robert Cecil the 3^rd Marquess of Salisbury, who was at the time, the British Prime Minister, and then, Stanley after the former Canadian governor general, Frederick Stanley, who was also the 16^th Earl of Derby. Now named Nelson after former British Columbia-Lieutenant-Governor; Hugh Nelson, it was incorporated as a city on March 18, 1897 and used to be the largest city between Vancouver and Winnipeg and boomed during the mining days between 1897 and 1907 as an area for the surrounding mines including Silver King on Toad Mountain and was also a major terminus and transfer point for railways and lake steamships. Mining continued during the early-1920s, and agriculture became important even though, a disease ruined the orchards between 1920 and 1950.  Logging, arts and crafts, and sawmilling are the major benefactors in the economy in addition to tourism.

Nelson is also known as the “the Heritage Capital of British Columbia” with about 350 buildings that have received heritage status since 1981 including the courthouse and the city hall. Nelson even had its own Electric Tramway transit system from 1899 to 1949 when service on the Nelson Street Railway was suspended and was eventually replaced by buses. Visitors can relive this era by riding Streetcar #23, the only surviving active restored streetcar that used to run in the city from 1925-1949 and is a major seasonal attraction that runs from usually Easter Weekend to Thanksgiving (depending on weather and the season) during the summer months, where it runs 11:30 to 4:30 pm daily from Lakeside Park in the waterfront section of the city near the Nelson Bridge to Chahko Mika Mall, one of Nelson’s shopping centers.

Nelson is also home to the Nelson Leafs of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, who play their home games at the Nelson and District Community Complex, a multi-use facility which includes not only an arena but also has an indoor swimming pool, meeting room, and fitness room.

 Nelson’s population: 9,258

VANCOUVER

Is British Columbia’s largest city with home to an estimated 2 million people (including suburbs) and the largest city of Western Canada. It is named after explorer and former British Royal navy officer George Vancouver (1757-1798). Before 1792, before the Spanish explorers arrived, the First Nations people, whom fished in the surrounding waters, first inhabited Vancouver. During the decade of the 1860s, industrialism was marked by the arrival of lumber mills being built on both sides of Burrard Inlet. Vancouver today, is one of Canada’s most friendly and diverse metropolises in terms of international and national relations with several people of Asian, Japanese, European, Hawaiian and Africa decent live in Vancouver. Vancouver, (along with Whistler, approximately 100 kilometers to the north) hosted the 2010 winter and Para-Olympic games with such winter sports including hockey, and curling excited sports enthusiasts around the world. With 14 gold medals, this event is considered to be the best Canada has ever done on the three previous times it has hosted these games on its home soil (the other two being Calgary in 1988 and Montreal in 1976) where it didn’t even win a single gold medal. The city is landscaped with mountains to the north and east of the city with the ocean to the west. Vancouver is home to 3 prolific sports teams with the Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL), the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and the Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League. The Giants hosted and won the 2007 Memorial Cup, the Lions won the Grey Cup in 2006, while the Canucks have made two trips to the Stanley Cup with one being in 1982 and the other in 1994 but lost on both occasions. The city boasts a major transportation system that links the city with the suburbs and cities of Surrey, Burnaby, New Westminster, Richmond, and Coquitlam as well as the North Shore of Vancouver. Major attractions in Vancouver include Stanley Park, Gastown, Chinatown, BC Place Stadium, and BC Sports Hall of Fame just to name a few. Langara College, University of British Columbia and several other post-secondary institutions are located in and within the city. By the 2020s, Vancouver’s designation as British Columbia’s largest city is expected to be given to that of Surrey because its population is expected to triple by that period.

VANCOUVER’S POPULATION: 578,041, met area: about 2,000,000

GRANISLE

GRANISLE

Is a former mining town located on the west side of Babine Lake, about 55 kilometers east of Smithers at the north end of Highway #118.

The community was established in 1965 as a site for open-pit copper mine. The town got a boost in the 1970s, when Noranda Mine Company opened the Bell copper mine. In 1981, the company bought the original mine.

The town gets its name from a combination of “gran” for Granby, the original owners of the mine and “isle” for an island of where the mine is located.

1992 was a terrible year for the community as Noranda shut down the mine because of world-wide market conditions at the same time and in the process delivering the community a severe shock, but since the late 1990s, Granisle has since recovered from near “ghost town” status to a nice retirement and lodging center. During its prime, when the mine was operational, Granisle had a peak population of more than 3,000 people.   

Granisle’s population: 446

COURTENAY

COURTENAY

Is a medium-sized city, located on the east coast of Vancouver Island and in the heart of the Comox Valley, 108 kilometers north of Nanaimo.

Courtenay is named after the Courtenay River, which in turn is named after George William Courtenay, who captained HMS Constance, a shop that was stationed here between 1846 and 1849. Courtenay has long been inhabited by the Coast Salish First Nations people even before the first white settlers arrived. The Hudson’s Bay Company established a store and in the 1860s, a permanent community was put in place. A road from Victoria was put in place in 1910, and Courtenay became the main terminus of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway in 1914.

In 1992, North Island College was opened and has since become one of northern Vancouver Island’s biggest, largest and most popular post-secondary education institutions. Courtenay relies on tourism (including a couple of tourist attractions like a museum, and a fish hatchery that is open 365 days year from 8 am to 4 in the afternoon), commercial fishing, logging and mining as its main economic benefactors.

Courtenay was incorporated as a city in 1953, after been a town before that since 1915. Mount Washington Alpine Ski Resort is also found nearby and has become a major winter destination for skiers and snowboarders, in addition to several summer activities that include mountain biking, as well as hiking.

Courtenay and the Comox Valley experiences a climate similar to the rest of Vancouver Island. The summer months are normally dry with low- accumulations of precipitation, this is because of the nearby mountains pocessing a rain-shadow effect. During the winter months this area experiences mild winters with the moisture falling mostly as rain because of its close location to the ocean and its sea-level elevation. Having said that, it is common for arctic air to linger over the surrounding area, resulting in suddently-dropping temeperatures and freezing levels and as a consequence, a high snowfall can be an expected everyday occurrence from November to February. Annual high temperatures here average 13 degrees Celcius while annual  lows average around +5 to +6 degrees Celcius mark.

Courtenay, the Comox Valley, and the surrounding area made news headlines in 1946, when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck just west of here with the epicenter near the Forbidden Plateau. One of Canada’s most destructive and largest onshore earthquakes, the extent of damage was surprisingly minimal given the fact that it was classified as VIII-Destructive on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. This happened because the area around the epicenter was remote and not heavy-populated at the time. The damage it did in this area was demolishing Courtenay’s chimneys on buildings and there were 2 fatalities. Shaking was felt as far north as Prince Rupert and far south as Portland, Oregon as well as on most of Vancouver Island, Victoria and even Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.  

Courtenay’s population: 21,940

SALMON ARM

SALMON ARM

Is a small city, located on the Trans-Canada Highway, at the head of the southern arm of Shuswap Lake geographically located roughly halfway between Vancouver and Calgary.

The city’s name comes from its location on a arm of Shuswap Lake, which gets its name from the once plentiful numbers of salmon that swarmed up the tributaries that drain into Shuswap Lake. Despite being home to the Shuswap First Nations people, It first came to life in 1888, when the first white settlers arrived who worked here during construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Salmon Arm is now mostly a tourism-based community with many camping and house boat rental facilities available mainly during the summertime months and is also home to well over 20 provincial parks and recreation areas on Shuswap Lake.

Salmon Arm is considered to be the Shuswap Lake region’s largest incorporated community and it was in 2005, that Salmon Arm celebrated its 100^th year as a incorporated community and thus in the same year it became incorporated as a city.

The city boasts a campus of Okanagan University College which offers a wide variety of diploma programs in many professions.

Forestry, dairy farming, and agriculture are also very important to Salmon Arm’s economy.

The Salmon Arm Silverbacks, a British Columbia Hockey League team play their home games in the city and Dave Scatchard, a former professional hockey player, who used to play for Vancouver Canucks and New York Islanders, is originally from Salmon Arm.   

Salmon Arm’s population: 14,664

NANAIMO

NANAIMO              

Is a large-sized city, overlooking a beautiful harbour on the east coast of Vancouver Island, 110 kilometers north of Victoria.

Coal was discovered here in 1849 and just shortly thereafter, the Hudson’s Bay Company built a trading post. The settlement was first known as Colville Town, named after the company’s governor’s Andrew Colville. It was renamed Nanaimo in 1860 and is a first nations word meaning “strong”. The fort the company built still stands and now is known today as “The Bastion” and is the oldest and fortified Hudson’s Bay Company fort in Canada and today it still stands. Coal played a huge and sustainable role in the city, when production crested at 1,000,000 tonnes in 1923-until World War 2 (WWII), when the coalmines expired giving the city no choice but to close the last mine for good during the 1950s. Nanaimo built good port facilities and was able to make the transaction from being a mining town to a major port city for Vancouver Island.

During the 1990s, Nanaimo became the third-fastest growing city and after Victoria (including all its suburbs), Nanaimo is the second-largest community on Vancouver Island. Tourism, commercial fishing, sawmilling, and just being a major destination center for Vancouver Island are the mainstays of the economy.

Nanaimo became incorporated in 1874 and is third oldest city in British Columbia and the second-oldest in all of Vancouver Island. Malaspina College, one of the most scenic and beautiful post-secondary education institutions on Vancouver Island is located in Nanaimo and is the main college in the city.

The 3,000-seat Frank Crane Arena is home to Nanaimo’s only hockey team; the Nanaimo Clippers of the British Columbia Junior Hockey League (BCJHL) and since the 2003-2004 season, the team has won 2 Fred Page Cups (British Columbia’s Junior Hockey League’s equivalent of the Stanley Cup).

Nanaimo’s population: 78,672

QUESNEL

QUESNEL

Is a small city located at the confluence of the Quesnel and Fraser Rivers, 118 kilometers south of Prince George, and is the largest and most commercialized city of the North Cariboo region of British Columbia.

Previously known as Quesnellemouth, Quesnel is named after fur trader Jules-Maurice Quesnel, who in 1808, escorted Simon Fraser on his exploration of the Fraser River.

Quesnel started out as supply center for the goldfields with the discovery of gold in the Williams Creek area near Barkerville in 1857 because of this Quesnel was made into a stopover point for miners on their way towards Barkerville. Quesnel boomed during the 1860s when the Fraser River became a frequent stopping point for paddle wheeler ships on their way towards Fort George (now known today as Prince George) from Soda Creek. The city celebrates its history and ties with the Cariboo Gold Rush, every July with Billy Barker Days, a 4-day family-fun weekend event that brings families and the community together to celebrate and pay tribute to this era.

In 1865, the Collins Overhead Telegraph arrived at Quesnel. This telegraph was to provide sufficient communication from California to Moscow, Russia and an effective telegraph from North America to Europe but abandoned in 1866 after a line was successfully put down across the Atlantic instead. A cairn commemorating this event is one of many historic highlights in downtown Quesnel, an old Hudson’s Bay Company trading post that dates from 1867 (now gift shop) and an old traffic bridge across the Fraser River that dates from 1929 are among many others.

With several pulp and sawmills and a plywood plant located within the city, Quesnel mostly relies on forestry as its main economic activity. An observation tower at the north end of town provides a panoramic view of most of the sawmills as well as many signs of interest that tell the history of this industry of Quesnel and on how forestry plays a huge economic role here.

Quesnel is also positioned at the junction of 2 highways, Highways #97, and 88-kilometer long Highway #26, which goes to communities such as Barkerville Historic Town, Wells, as well as the provincial park at Bowron Lake, the latter being a popular canoeing area. Highway #97 meanwhile, goes north towards Prince George and the rest of the north-eastern corner British Columbia while the highway south goes from here to Williams Lake, 100 Mile House, Cache Creek where it eventually goes to communities in the Okanagan and eventually the Canada/United States border, just south of Osoyoos.

Quesnel was incorporated as a village in 1928 and became a city in 1979.

Quesnel’s population: 9,326

RETALLACK

RETALLACK
Is a ghost town, located on Highway #31A halfway between Kaslo and New Denver in British Columbia's famed "Valley of the Ghosts". Retallack, (pronounced (Re-till-ick), was originally known as Bells Camp and had a population of 300 residents, due to the town being near several known and key mines in the area. Retallack also had amenities including several stores and hotels, a post office, a school, barber shop, and had a small sawmill built in the 1900s but unfortunately the mill was destroyed by a fire and never rebuilt. Mining continued here until the late 1960s, when the company that ran the mines ceased operations in which Retallack became an ghost town almost overnight. There are still signs of life here, including a couple of historic buildings, a lodge and a small heli-skiing operation.