As of Today, April 9 (edit: darnit; yesterday, forgot to hit post) Tumbler Ridge will turn 40 years old.
Sort of.
Y’see, Tumbler Ridge has two dates that people can point to as the birth day of the town. April 9, 1981, the day the town was incorporated and June 6, 1984, the day the town was opened.
And I’m sort of a contrarian on this point, mostly because the two things that sell papers is sex and controversy. (And you do not want to see me in my frilly nothings….)
A couple council meetings back, they were debating the whole party for forty years, and the decision was, rather than try and mark the occasion on the actual day, council was going to delay the celebrations until this whole Covid thing settled down.
So I asked (through the CAO, as I can’t attend in person these days): “While I am all for celebrating the signing of a piece of a paper, the June 6 date is far more appropriate a day to celebrate the birthday of Tumbler Ridge. Sure, it means waiting another three years, but maybe this whole Pandemic thing will be done by then. Would council entertain having a small celebration this year (maybe a drive in BBQ), and have a knock-em down, blow em out party June 6, 2024?”
Councillor Howe poo-pooed the idea. He said April 9, 1981 is the town’s real birthday. The June 6 day is like “when you’re born vs when you were baptized. For me the date it was incorporated was the date Tumbler Ridge became a community.”
Oooh. Let’s throw down the gauntlets. It’s on like Kong! (Not Donkey. No, not King, either. Like those dog toys. We can throw them at each other. It’ll be great.)
First off, if the date of incorporation is the actual birthday of the town, try telling that to Jumbo Glacier.
Jumbo Glacier was incorporated eight year’s back, but then the ski hill that was supposed to be the economic heart of the community never came to fruition, and the land was set aside as a conservation zone.
Let’s just say they suffered from premature incorporation, and the BC government de-incorporated (dis-incorporated?) the municipality last year.
If the incorporation of the town is the day the town is born, why is there no… anything at Jumbo Glacier other than the glacier? There are no abandoned buildings, slowly being reclaimed by nature like in other towns that have been abandoned. There was never anything there. The only thing it had going for it was a piece of paper and a provincially appointed mayor and council who didn’t even live there.
Last year the municipality’s Mayor Greg Deck said dissolving the incorporation would be a “mostly administrative activity, just closing up accounts, passing claims back to the province advising insurance companies and things that we no longer require coverage. Really boring nuts and bolts stuff.”
Well, duh, because the municipality itself was nothing more than an administrative activity. A certificate of incorporation does not a town make. Without a town to back it up, it’s just a piece of paper.
No, the signing of the papers of incorporation is not the day a town is born. If we are going to keep the birth metaphor, the date of incorporation is the day the town was conceived. That was the easy part. The fun part.
The hard work, the morning sickness? The, dare I say, birthing of the community? That came after.
But more to the point, even at the time, June 6 was the date set aside to celebrate.
Leading up to the grand opening, that date—June 6, 1984—was declared a civic holiday for the town.
The day was set aside to celebrate “the official opening of TR and northeast coal.”
By Wednesday, May 23, the cover of the then-local paper proclaimed “Grand Opening excitement,” as 11 committees and numerous volunteers “put in long hours behind the scenes organizing and finalizing details for the grand occasion.”
A few days before the grand opening, the town-to-be still only had a population of 300. And while it was the largest municipality by size in the province at the time (it has since been outstripped by the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, which is akin to a regional municipality, but functionally acts as a district municipality with one mayor and one council, even though there are six communities.)
Even then, one could argue the town wasn’t quite ready for prime time as the five hundred plus housing units under construction wouldn’t be ready for at least a few more months.
Still, the Lions Club was already here, and there was already a Chamber of Commerce.
On the same day, dignitaries, officials, employees and media were on hand for the grand opening of Bullmoose Mine. The then-premier Bill Bennett triggered a blast, marking the occasion.
I’m surprised that town commissioner Pat Walsh didn’t walk around handing out cigars like a proud papa. Or maybe he did. The papers from the time don’t mention it.
Don Phillips did praise the people responsible for building the town and the mines for bringing the town together “on time and within budget.” Read: congratulations, it’s a town!
So, while there’s probably going to be some form of celebration this year around the town’s incorporation—which, I want to be clear, I am not opposed to (the more parties the better)—for me, the date we truly should celebrate is June 6, 2024.
Who’s with me?
Over the course of the next three years, I’ll be revisiting the construction of Tumbler Ridge, and telling stories of the people who made this town what it is today, for good or ill, and witness the building of the town, the railway, the highways and the mines through newspapers, as well as the eyes of the people who were there. If you know someone I should be talking to for this, contact me.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.