Prince George
Location
Prince George, often referred to as the "Gateway to the North", is situated at the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser rivers in the north of British Columbia. It is the chief town of an extensive surrounding area in which some 170,000 people live
Above all, though, it is an important road and rail junction, where the east-west Yellowhead Highway (TransCanada Hwy 16) intersects the north-south John Hart Highway-Caribou Highway (Hwy 97), and where C.N. trains en route between Prince Rupert and Vancouver both make stops. Prince George is also an important center for the west Canadian cellulose and paper industry.
History
During his first expedition Alexander Mackenzie camped briefly at the confluence of the two rivers in 1793, and thought it a suitable place for later settlement. He was followed in 1806 by Simon Fraser of the North West Company, who founded Fort George here a year later as, so to speak, an outpost of Fort St James.
Despite its strategic position the fur trade and the 1858 Cariboo gold-rush largely passed Fort George by. Only with the opening of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, bringing hordes of hopeful settlers, adventurers and trades people, did the Fort George area experience its own economic boom. In addition to the existing settlement at Fort George, a rival settlement, South Fort George, grew up on the south side of the Fraser River. In 1915 they merged to form the new township of Prince George. Thereafter the population continued to expand and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Prince George boasted more than 4000 inhabitants. Already by then timber was the mainstay of the town's economy. When three big paper and cellulose factories were built here in the 1960s, the population shot up to over 60,000. The advent of more industry resulted in Prince George becoming one of Canada's highest per capita income areas in the 1970s.
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