Introduction

Why was Tumbler Ridge built?

A Big Project

Power Supply

Townsite of Tumbler Ridge

Building a New Town

A Community's Dependence on Mining

Town Site of Tumbler Ridge

The two new coal mines, Quintette and Bullmoose, would soon be opening and people would start to move into the Peace River area. The Quintette mine would soon be the largest open-pit coal mine in Canada. It would employ close to 1,300 people and the Bullmoose mine would hire another 400 - 500 people.⁴ That’s almost 2,000 employees!

Distance to Work:

Where were all of the mine employees and their families going to live? Perhaps some of them could live in Chetwynd? This was not very likely. Although Chetwynd was the closest town to both of the mine sites, it was still almost 100 km away. Would you want to drive one hour to get to school or work every morning and another hour just to get home at night? This would make for a very long day.

Most people like to live close to their work because it doesn’t take them very long to commute to and from work, they don’t need to spend a lot of money on gas, and they will be closer to their homes and families. People in charge of the mine like managers and foremen also need to be able to get to work very quickly in case of an emergency or a major problem. The government and mining companies decided that a town site that was close to the two mines would be the best idea.

Effects on other Communities:⁵

Another reason that the Government decided to build Tumbler Ridge was because other communities, like Chetwynd, would have a hard time looking after several thousand new residents.

School in Tumbler Ridge. Courtesy of Teck Corporation

Nearby communities would not have enough room in their schools for all the new children. They would probably need to make their police, fire and ambulance stations bigger. They would need to build more grocery stores and gas stations and they would need to build homes for all the new residents - making sure that the houses had water, sewer and electricity.

The mines and the government wanted to keep all of the employees happy and make things easier for everyone, so they decided to build a new town - Tumbler Ridge.

Next Page