Prince George-Mackenzie.
3 candidates, one seat.

The Lheidli T’enneh First Nation says that T’enneh means “The People” and that it is a sub-group of the Dakelh people. Its name Lheidli means “The People from the Confluence of the River” in the Carrier language, and it refers to the place where the Nechako River enters the Fraser at Prince George. The Nation gives the names of the two rivers as Nee Incha Koh, “river with strong undercurrents”, and Ltha Koh, the Big Mouth River. The BC Treaty Commission describes the Nation’s traditional territory as the land around Prince George, including the Nechako and Fraser River basins, east to the Alberta border. The City of Prince George says the Lheidli T’enneh have lived in the area for at least 9,000 years. The commission’s 2023 report places the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation inside this district.

North of the city the land belongs to the Tse’Khene of the McLeod Lake Indian Band. The band writes that Tse’Khene means “People of the Rocks” and that its people were hunters who controlled the basins of the Parsnip and Finlay Rivers and the valley of the Peace River. It gives the south limit of its territory as the high ground near Summit Lake that separates Arctic and Pacific drainage. The Mackenzie and District Museum says Summit Lake sits at low elevation on the continental divide, between waters that drain to the Pacific, such as the Fraser River, and waters that drain to the Arctic, such as the Peace River.

BC Geographical Names says that Sir Alexander Mackenzie passed through the Mackenzie area in June 1793 on his journey overland to the Pacific Ocean. In 1805, the McLeod Lake Indian Band writes, the North West Company built the first fur trading post in British Columbia at the mouth of the Pack River on McLeod Lake. BC Geographical Names adds that James McDougall built the post in 1805 and that Simon Fraser arrived in 1806. The post was first called Trout Lake House, then La Malice Fort, and later Fort McLeod after Archibald Norman McLeod, an officer of the North West Company.

In 1807 Simon Fraser founded a post at the meeting of the Nechako and Fraser Rivers, and it was named Fort George after King George III. BC Geographical Names records the Carrier name for that place as Thle-et-leh, “the confluence”. The District of Mackenzie says that the Hudson’s Bay Company came into the area in the 1820s and set up many trading posts. The Hudson’s Bay Company closed its post at Fort George in May 1915.

BC Geographical Names says that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway began to survey the Fort George area in 1906. The City of Prince George writes that the railway company wanted Fort George Indian Reserve No. 1, which lay where downtown Prince George is today. After years of talks, the City says, the Lheidli T’enneh reluctantly accepted the sale of 553 hectares for $125,000 in May 1912. In September 1913 the remaining members were forced off the village site against their will and the village was burned. As part of the sale, the City says, contractors built new houses and St. Pius X Church at Khas T’an Lhe Ghulgh Reserve No. 2 and four houses at Hlez Ba Nee Chek Reserve No. 3. The Exploration Place museum says the Lheidli T’enneh were moved in 1913 to a place upstream on the Fraser River near Shelley.

The first passenger train reached Prince George on 30 January 1914. The city was incorporated on 6 March 1915. At the first civic election that year the name Prince George won over Fort George with 153 votes. The City’s own account puts the 1915 boundaries at 5.1 square kilometres, covering downtown and parts of the Crescents and Millar Addition.

The Hart Highway, now Highway 97, goes 406 kilometres from Prince George across the Rocky Mountains to Dawson Creek. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia says construction began in 1945 and was finished on 1 July 1952, and that the road is named for John Hart, who was premier from 1941 to 1947. The City’s biography of former mayor Harry Perry says he persuaded Hart to build a highway north through the Pine Pass.

The City of Prince George reports that its population went from 4,000 people in 1947 to 60,000 less than 30 years later. Its boundaries stayed unchanged from 1915 until 1953 and then grew in 14 steps. The largest step came in 1975, when the city took in Blackburn, College Heights and the area north of the Nechako River. By 1995 the city covered just under 327 square kilometres. The city’s peak population was just over 75,000 in 1996. BC Geographical Names places Hart Highlands in Prince George north of the Nechako River, the area the City says it took in during 1975.

Mackenzie was built as a new town for the forest industry. The Mackenzie and District Museum says that in 1964 BC Forest Products announced a $60 million forestry complex in the area. The BC Forest Service built a road from the junction of Highways 39 and 97 to Finlay Forks in the early 1960s, and in 1965 the clearing of the townsite began. BC Geographical Names records that Mackenzie was incorporated as a district municipality on 19 May 1966 and named for Sir Alexander Mackenzie. The museum says that the population was just over 7,000 by the early 1970s and that Mackenzie’s first high school graduating class, of 11 students, finished in 1972.

The town grew beside a new lake. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia says BC Hydro built the W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River from 1962 to 1967 and that its power station began to run in 1968. Williston Reservoir, 1,773 square kilometres in area, flooded the valleys of the Parsnip and Finlay Rivers. The District of Mackenzie says the water covered many settlements along those rivers. BC Hydro states that the reservoir lies on the traditional territories of Tsay Keh Dene, Kwadacha and the Treaty 8 First Nations.

Treaty 8 was proposed in 1898, and the McLeod Lake Indian Band writes that Canada did not sign the band to it then. In 1987 the band told Canada that it wished to join. Canada agreed, the band says, but British Columbia refused to transfer land. In 1988 the band won an injunction that stopped timber harvesting on its lands. Negotiations with Canada and British Columbia began in 1992, and in 2000 the band ratified an agreement that brought it into Treaty 8. The band says the settlement gave it a trust fund and 20,000 hectares of forest, reserve and other land. The Province lists the Act that carries the agreement as the McLeod Lake Indian Band Treaty No. 8 Adhesion and Settlement Agreement Act, 2000.

The Lheidli T’enneh followed the BC treaty process. The BC Treaty Commission records that the Nation filed its statement of intent in December 1993, signed a framework agreement on 26 August 1996 and signed an agreement in principle on 26 July 2003. The Province states that the Lheidli T’enneh voted in 2007 not to accept the original treaty agreement. The commission records that a treaty was initialled on 5 May 2018, and the Province states that members voted again not to accept the treaty in June 2018.

The Globe and Mail reported on 16 April 2010 that the Pope & Talbot pulp mill at Mackenzie had been shut in 2008 by the bankruptcy of its owner, and that the town had seen all of its lumber, pulp and paper mills close. That day a unit of Sinar Mas called Paper Excellence BV agreed to pay $20 million for the pulp mill. The Globe reported that the mill’s union had signed a contract for more than 240 workers and that the McLeod Lake Indian Band, which holds resource rights in the area, said it would ensure the mill had enough wood fibre.

PaperAge reported that Paper Excellence bought the mill in 2010 and invested more than $360 million in it. The company reduced production in June 2020 and announced the permanent closure of the mill in April 2021. The company said the mill’s small production capacity and the lack of local wood fibre at an economic price meant it could not compete with mills elsewhere in the world. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia gives Mackenzie’s population as 3,281 in the 2021 census.