With a few short weeks before the end of the year, most people are thinking it’s the end of the decade. It isn’t, really. Technically the end of the decade will be the last day of December2020, but its always easier to consider the end of the decade when the tens digit rolls over. Much easier to party like it’s December 31, 1999 than the same day a year later.
And while our sleepy little northern town can seem the same as it was ten years ago, a fair bit has changed. A decade ago, Larry White was Mayor, Jay Hill was MP and Blair Lekstrom was MLA. Only Lekstrom is even still in politics, having given up the fast pace of provincial politics to go back to sitting on Dawson Creek town Council.
Ten years ago, the “well-used” recycling bins were still at Shop Easy. Indeed, it was sometime in 2010 that they moved to the TR Place Parking Lot. Since then, they’ve moved again, down to the Transfer Station. And Shop Easy is no longer Shop Easy, but Freshmart. But with the promise of curbside recycling coming on-stream in the next year or two, recycling rates should shoot up.
On January 31 2010, the Olympic torch came to Tumbler Ridge. The week leading up to its arrival was full of celebrations, leading up to the arrival itself, and a street hockey tournament in front of town hall.
People were complaining about the lack of high speed. Some things never change.
If you had gone up to the Dinosaur Discovery Gallery early in the year, you would have noticed there was no Community Garden; that didn’t show up there until that summer. The Dinosaur Discovery Gallery had only just moved into the former Claude Galibois school, reopening in May of 2009.
There was no Hartford Housing, nor any wind turbines on the landscape, and at the start of 2010, Western Canadian Coal still owned the Wolverine Mine at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, that mine had been purchased by Walter Energy for a cool $3.3 billion. Met coal was selling at over $200/tonne, on its way up to $330 by 2011. But one year later, prices were back down to $200 tonne and would continue to fall, finally reaching double digits around the middle of the decade. Those prices slowly climbed back to nearly $200/tonne before slipping earlier this year. The mine changed hands a third time in 2018, after Walter Energy crashed and burned and Conuma Coal picked up the assets at a fire sale price.
Walter Energy shut their doors at its operations. Most employees are still waiting for the settlement from that fiasco.
In 2010, Teck started looking at reopening Quintette. On the cusp of making an announcement, the coal prices began to dive, and they decided to postpone re-opening the mine to a later date. At last report, the topic wasn’t anywhere in Teck’s short to mid-term plans.
Over at the Trend Mine, Peace River Coal, a partnership of Northern Energy & Mining Inc., Hillsborough Resources Ltd., and Anglo American still owned that mine. In 2011, Anglo purchased the mine outright. They still own the mine, though they shuttered operations in 2014. Rumours still abound that the mine will open “soon”, but the only thing they’ve said publicly is that studies are underway.
Infrastructure for outdoor enthusiasts continued to develop, with the Bergeron Falls Circular Route opening in June. Lover boy and Marianas Trench headlined Grizfest; ten years later, Grizfest is on hold, with the hopes of restarting in 2021.
Chris Swanson won the Emperor’s Challenge. As he did for every Emperor’s Challenge of the decade.
What is now the Trend Mountain Hotel was put up for sale for $7.5 million. It was bought by Peace River Coal, who have managed to keep the hotel up and running ever since.
Recently, many people have noticed a number of slash fires burning around Tumbler Ridge. This might have not been an issue if a proposed Biomass plant had managed to start up, but the plant—which was big news for much of the year—failed late in the year.
That’s a snapshot of what Tumbler Ridge looked like a decade ago. People have come, people have gone, and, while much about the town seems to have stayed the same, much also has changed. We have gone from a coal mining town to one of the province’s hotspots for wind energy. Mines have come and gone then come again. The last ten years brought us the Chinese Miner controversy, but it also brought us the Geopark. We’ve seen the death of Grizfest, but the birth of wind power. We’ve seen the highest price of coal, ever, and the lowest prices since the early 2000s. Things have changed, but things have also stayed the same.
