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Contact Us
Upper Fraser Regional Office
Regional Manager: Terry Robert
207-155 George Street
Prince George, BC V2L 1P8
Tel: (250) 612-0252
Fax: (250) 564-6514
Email: trobert@fraserbasin.bc.ca
Debora Munoz
Doug Routledge
Sheilagh Foster
Terry Teegee
Tom Greenaway
Regional Boundaries
The boundaries of the Upper Fraser Region are based primarily on watersheds, including the Upper Fraser, Nechako and Stuart-Takla. The region includes almost all the major communities in the Fraser-Fort George Regional District (FFGRD) and the central and eastern communities in the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District (BNRD).
Major Sustainability Issues in the Region
Major sustainability issues facing the region include dependence on single industries and the need for more economic diversification, the softwood lumber dispute with the USA, access to health care, improving aboriginal/non-aboriginal relations, effective transportation links, treaty settlements, and forest devastation from the mountain pine beetle epidemic.
Upper Fraser Regional FBC Programs
Go to Upper Fraser Region for information
on the regional programs.
See also: Basin Wide Programs
Mt. Robson - Headwaters of the Fraser
Major Watersheds
Upper Fraser
McGregor
Nechako
Salmon
Stuart-Takla
Communities in the Region
Burns Lake
Fort St. James
Fraser Lake
McBride
Prince George
Valemount
Vanderhoof
Canoeing on Bowron Lake
Major Economic Activities
Agriculture
Education & Training
Forestry & Forest Management
Manufacturing
Pulp & Paper
Retail
Tourism & Recreation
Transportation
Wood Products Manufacturing
Prince George
General Description of the Region
The Upper Fraser Region extends from the headwaters of the Fraser River on Mount Robson, northwest along the Rocky Mountain Trench to Prince George, north through the Stuart-Takla watershed to Fort St. James and Takla Landing, and west through Vanderhoof and Burns Lake in the Nechako watershed to the Coast Mountains. The population of the region is approximately 135,000 people, or 5% of the total population of the Fraser Basin. Communities include Burns Lake, Fort St. James, McBride, Prince George, Valemount and Vanderhoof.
The region features some of the most rugged and varied topography in the Fraser Basin, with abundant wildlife and spectacular landscapes. In the centre of the region, there is the broad rolling Interior Plateau with forests of spruce, pine and sub-alpine fir trees, and innumerable rivers and lakes. To the east are the Rocky Mountains and the northern end of the Columbia Mountains, an area known as the Interior Wet Belt, with cedar and hemlock forests. To the west, the Region is bounded by the Coast Mountains.
The Fraser River begins its 1399 km journey to the sea at Moose Lake in Mount Robson Provincial Park. At 3,954 metres, Mount Robson is the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains. The mountain is known by the local First Nation as Yah-hai-has-kun or "Mountain of the Spiral Road." The origin of the name "Robson" is uncertain. "Robson's Peak" was already in use in 1863, a fact that makes unlikely the theory that the mountain was named after John Robson, who became premier of BC in 1898. It may have been referred to as Mt. Robinson as early as 1827. The most probable theory is that it was named after Colin Robertson (1783-1842), a Hudson's Bay Company officer.
University of Northern BC
The most northern watershed of the Fraser River is the Stuart-Takla. The Stuart River – named after NWC fur trader John Stuart – originates at the south end of Stuart Lake near Fort St. James and flows southeastward for 187 km to join the Nechako River 55 km west of Prince George. It is in the territory of the Dakelh Carrier First Nation, and the confluence of the Stuart and Nechako rivers was the site of the ancient village of Chunlac. Starting in 1806, fur traders used the river to carry their furs from Fort St. James out of the country. Takla Lake empties to the southeast via the Middle River into Trembleur Lake and eventually into the Fraser River.
The Nechako River (516 km) rises on the Nechako Plateau east of the Coast Mountains south of Burns Lake, flows north through Fort Fraser, then east through Vanderhoof to join the Fraser at Prince George. The name comes from the Dakelh (Carrier) term Incha-Khoh meaning "big river." Homesteaders reached the area early in the 20th century; one tiny settlement, Nechacco, took its name from the river.
Prince George, known as BC's northern capital, is a bustling city of over 75,000 situated at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako Rivers, almost exactly in the geographic center of British Columbia. Surrounding the city are the lake-dotted, rolling hills of the Nechako Plateau. The city is a major transportation centre, located at the junction of the British Columbia Railway (BCR) and Canadian National Railway (CNR), and two interprovincial highways.
Winter Logging in the early days
The economy of Prince George is based on the forest industry, with fourteen sawmills, two single pulp mills and one of the largest twinned pulp mills in the world. Wood products manufacturing, a refinery, a brewery, chemical plants and diesel locomotive repair shops contribute to the industrial base. The city is a manufacturing centre for the Northern Interior, a staging centre for mining and prospecting, and a major regional transportation, trade and government hub. Its role as a regional centre is highlighted by a large, modern library, a newly expanded hospital, a regional college, the main campus of the University of Northern British Columbia, two museums, an art gallery, professional and amateur theatre and a symphony orchestra. Residents enjoy affordable housing, incomes above provincial averages, an extensive range of quality services, cultural and sports events, and easy access to wilderness for outdoor activities.
The forest industry is important to all the communities in the region. Terrain and climate support agriculture, primarily in the Nechako and Robson valleys near the communities of Vanderhoof and McBride respectively. Tourism, especially outdoor adventure and recreational activities, plays an increasingly important role in the Region.
Old Hudson's Bay Fort - Fort George
History of the Region
The Upper Fraser Region is the traditional territory of the Dakelh or Carrier people. The Carrier are a major Athapaskan language group occupying the upper Fraser River, Nazko River, Bulkley River, Nechako River, and the Stuart, Takla, Pinchie, Fraser, FranÁois, and Anahim Lakes. Carriers call themselves Dakelh-ne or Yinka Dene or they identify themselves by the community from which they come with the addition of the suffix "t'en" or "whut'en" (people of). There are three dialects of Carrier: southern, central, and Babine (Wet'suwet'en and Natot'en).
The Upper Fraser was originally explored during the summer of 1793, when Alexander Mackenzie, the first European to cross the continent north of Mexico, led a small expedition through a deep canyon where the Peace River cuts into the Rocky Mountains, up the Parsnip to its headwaters, and across the Arctic-Pacific drainage divide to James Creek, a tributary of McGregor River. He then canoed down the McGregor to the Fraser River. He reported that among the Carrier people, it was known as "Tacoutche Tesse" that means "one river within another,' perhaps referring to its confluence with the Nechako. Curiously, Mackenzie did not record having seen the junction of the Nechako and Fraser Rivers. After touching the Pacific Ocean near Bella Coola, Mackenzie immediately returned to more familiar country east of the Rocky Mountains, and except for a brief excursion by James Finlay in 1797, no Europeans visited the region until 1805.
In that year Simon Fraser received orders from the North West Company to expand the fur trade beyond the Rocky Mountains. He established Fort McLeod in 1805, Fort St. James and Fort Fraser in 1806, and Fort George (later Prince George) in 1807 at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers. These posts mark the real beginning of the land-based fur trade in BC, and until the discovery of gold in the 1850s, furs were the area's most significant export.
Steamboat passing through Ft. George Canyon
Fraser sought the same route to the Pacific as Alexander Mackenzie. In 1808 Fraser set out from Fort George, along with John Stuart and Jules-Maurice Quesnel, on what he thought was the Columbia River. They made it past the Fraser Canyon but were forced to turn around at the fortified Musqueam village near the mouth of the river where a hostile reception prevented further exploration. In 1813, David Thompson, the first European to travel the Columbia River to the Pacific, named the river after Simon Fraser.
Fort St. James became the administrative capital of the fur empire known as New Caledonia that eventually became British Columbia. Today, Fort St. James National Historic Park encompasses the original site. Apart from the merger of the North West Company into the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, the fur trade continued undisturbed in this region until 1861, when a few placer miners drifted north from the Cariboo to pan for gold on the Finlay and Parsnip Rivers.
Between 1865 and 1914 a succession of events established the basic pattern of settlement and industry. Beginning in 1869, a series of placer-gold discoveries were made in the Omineca region. Although these discoveries were in the Peace River basin, access was made through the Upper Fraser. Activity in the Omineca District remained high until about 1875, then quickly declined.
CNR Bridge at Prince George
The origins of Prince George can be traced to the fur trading post of Fort George. Settlement around Fort George began to increase significantly about 1906 when it became evident that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (later CN Rail) would pass near the fur post. From 1908 until its completion in 1914, the construction of the rail line and town site generated a boom of rather large proportions. Tie-cutting and sawmilling were introduced, and access provided by the railroad stimulated agricultural homesteading in the Nechako Valley and south to Francois and Ootsa Lakes. In 1915, the City of Prince George – named after Prince George, the Duke of Kent – was incorporated.
Beginning during World War II and continuing until the late 1970s, there was unprecedented industrial expansion and population growth. Events influencing these conditions included completion of the John Hart Highway (i.e., Highway 97) between Prince George and Dawson Creek in 1952, vigorous development of the forest industry, and extension of the Pacific Great Eastern rail line, now BC Railway, from Quesnel to Prince George in 1952 and from Prince George to the Peace River in 1958. Economic wealth was reflected in a very rapid increase of population when many people arrived from the prairies and Europe to work in the sawmills. Between 1941 and 1971 the population soared from 13,000 to 63,000.
Other projects that contributed to the region's growth included construction of the huge hydroelectric generating complex on the Peace River, extension of the Northern Trans-Provincial Highway (i.e., Highway 16) from Prince George to McBride, and establishment of pulp-mills at Prince George and Mackenzie in the 1960s and 1970s. By 1997, the population of Prince George was over 75,000.