Above photo: The prodigal son returns. Former Tumbler Ridge resident Scott Cook performed at the Geopark’s tenth birthday party, his first time back in nearly 30 years. Manda Maggs photo.
The Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark is ten years old and to celebrate, they had a party!
Manda Maggs is the Executive Director for the Geopark, and took over from Sarah Gamble about five years ago. “It’s been great,” she says, looking back at her time working for the Geopark. “I know the Geopark has had lots of impact on this community in those ten years and we’ve certainly been doing a lot of listening to what the community actually wants from its Geopark and refining things, doing a lot of community development and program development.”
The biggest development for the Geopark this year? Is sustainable funding, from both the Peace River Regional District and the District of Tumbler Ridge. “For the first time ever we can say that like we’re in a good spot for the long-term future,” says Maggs.
She says the rise in tourism numbers in town has been dramatic since the Geopark started. “We did an impact assessment in 2021 and from 2015 to 2021 the numbers showed that we had a 430 percent increase in those seven years. And this year we had such a huge May long weekend, I actually went back and checked our visitor numbers, comparing last year to this year and we had more than a 200 percent increase, almost a 240 percent increase on those three days this year over last year.
In all metrics the Geopark—which also runs the Visitor Information Centre—is driving tourism in the community. “We’re handing out more brochures than ever before, which is interesting because we’ve also been tracking digital downloads and the digital downloads are also up so it’s not just that people are switching back to paper from digital. Yes, they’re coming in and they want those brochures, but they’re also accessing them on their phones.”
And, while the big draw is still from people within a half day’s drive, they’re seeing more and more people from around the world. “We train our staff to have a conversation with people to learn a little bit about where they’re from and what their plans are and how they heard about us, especially when those people are coming internationally. This year we’ve had people from New Zealand and Germany and the Netherlands and the UK and lots of different places. One of the things that I find really interesting is asking these people if they planned on coming to Tumbler Ridge, or did they see a sign or heard about Tumbler Ridge at a visitor centre and think it might be a good place to stop. A lot of what we’re hearing now is coming to Tumbler Ridge was the plan before they left. Which is really cool. And that’s a huge change.”
She says that is definitely helped by Destination BC and the Northern BC Tourism Association. “They’ve been doing lots of campaigns they’ve put up a couple brand new websites that help people way find to Tumbler Ridge. But we’ve become an iconic location in Northern BC, so it makes it really easy for people to spot us and to understand what we’re about.
Maggs says last year, a master’s student from UNBC came to do her graduate thesis on Tourism in Tumbler Ridge. “She did extensive surveys, and it was three things that brought people here: access to the hiking, to the waterfalls and to the dinosaurs. They’re pretty on par with one another.
“I think we’ve been doing a really good job of letting people know about those things. They are the hooks and then once people are here, we can say ‘oh, you’re here for the hiking. Are you into mountain biking? Because we’ve got this really cool new track.’ It becomes an added value thing where a whole family can come visit, and mom’s a hiker, dad’s into biking and the kids are dinosaur crazy. You can have all three of those things here. I think we are getting to the point where there’s a nice variety for people to experience. We’ve always had those things separately, but I think we’re developing a story that connects them all. Getting the community on board has been huge yeah because they will go and tell you the story about how the coal and the dinosaurs are related or how if it weren’t for the coal exploration, we probably wouldn’t have access to places like Monkman Park and the Boulder Gardens. They’re all related and they’re all interconnected.”
She says, while it’s not on par with hiking, mountain biking is definitely driving people to town. “We’ve been seeing lots of e-bikes in the parking lot, strapped to people’s RVs. Maybe that’s just one of the things that they’re doing here, but because it’s here they’re making sure to bring their bikes along.”
Maggs says the Geopark was planning on doing an adventure race/Geoquest for the anniversary, but they didn’t have enough people signed up at the cutoff. But, she says, they might do that in the future.
Instead, they had a BBQ on Saturday, July 27, with kids activities and a scavenger hunt and three-legged races and painting rocks. Maggs says it’s hard to do an accurate head count as people came in and out throughout the day, but she predicts there were between 250 and 300 people who showed up.
“We had a live music performance afterwards with Scott Cook who’s just a delightful person. A really nice gentleman and his songs were really sweet and cute and I really appreciated the songwriting aspect, aside from just a remarkable performance.”
To find out more about the Geopark and upcoming events—including, maybe, a rescheduled GeoQuest, find them on Facebook, or at tumblerridgegeopark.ca
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
