How many people live in Tumbler Ridge?
Nobody is quite certain, as people are always coming and going but a snapshot from the 2021 census puts the population at 2399 people.
That’s just over half of the town’s peak population of 4794 in 1991, but up from a low of 1932 people in 2001.
Tumbler Ridge has always had a fluctuating population. According to the original conceptural plan, the town was supposed to start off with 3,568 residents in 1981 and grow to 10,584 by 1987, at which point the level was supposed to stabalize.
But with coal prices dropping shortly after the town’s mines came on stream, many potential residents and businesses were unwilling to invest long term in the town.
The town’s population is up 20.7 percent from the 2016 census, when the population was only 1,987 people.
While 20.7 percent is a fairly decent growth—and makes Tumbler Ridge the fastest growing town in Northern BC—that figure pales in comparison to Sun Peaks, which saw its population grow 127.9 percent since the previous census.
Other municipalities that outpaced Tumbler Ridge’s growth include Radium Hot Springs (72.6 percent), Pemberton (32.3 percent), Langford (31.8 percent), Harrison Hot Springs (29.7 percent) Tofino (27.9 percent), Lakes Country (22.4 percent) and Squamish (22.2 percent).
Elsewhere in Northern BC, Telkwa’s population went up to 1474 (11 percent growth), and Fort St. John went up to 21,465 (5.6 percent growth) while most municipalities stayed within plus or minus five percent of their 2016 size.
However, a number of municipalities experienced significant population loss, including Chetwynd (down eight percent to 2302, making it smaller than Tumbler Ridge for the first time in many years), Taylor (down 10.4 percent to 1317), Mackenzie (down 11.7 percent to 3281), Fort St. James (down 13.3 percent to 1386) and Fort Nelson/Northern Rockies, which saw an 18.3 percent drop in its population to 3947). These were the top five biggest drops in population across the province. Overall, the Northern BC population only grew .4 of a percent.
Provincially, BC’s population is over 5-million people for the first time, thanks to an overall growth trend of 7.6 percent. Only Yukon (12.1 per cent) and Prince Edward Island (4.8 per cent) grew faster.
Most of those people moved to the mid-sized city, with Kelowna, Chilliwack, Kamloops and Nanaimo all adding more than 10 percent to their total population in the last five years.
Still, the Lion’s share of people live in the Lower Mainland, with the province’s largest cities being Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond and Abbotsford.
All told, the Lower Mainland holds more than three million people, which is more than half the total population of the province, but the fastest growing area—not just in BC, but in all of Canada—is the Kelowna area, which includes the municipalities of Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country and Peachland.
Finally, Canada’s population reached almost 37 million in 2021, an increase of 5.2 percent.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.