Prince George Vacations, BC, Canada

British Columbia’s seventh-largest city, Prince George (pop. 74,000) lies roughly at the geographical center of the province, at the confluence of the historically important Fraser and Nechako Rivers. The 1,360-kilometer-long (845-mile-long) Fraser is the province’s longest river, while the Nechako is the Fraser’s third-largest tributary. Together the two rivers flow for 50 kilometers (31 miles) within the city limits.

Early trappers and explorers used the rivers as transportation routes into the northern reaches of the province. When they discovered the region’s wealth of wolf, fox, lynx, mink, wolverine, otter, and muskrat, they quickly established forts and trading posts by rivers and lakes so that furs could be sent out and supplies could be brought in. In 1807, Simon Fraser of the North West Company began construction of Fort George—named after then-reigning King George III of England—near the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako Rivers. The North West Company merged with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821, and Fort George was operated as a Hudson’s Bay Company post until 1915.

The railroad reached the area in 1908, and in 1915 the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway platted the townsite of Prince George a few kilometers south of the original Fort George. The new town went on to become a major logging, sawmill, and pulp-mill town, the center of the white spruce industry in British Columbia’s central interior. Hundreds of sawmills started cutting local timber, and Prince George became the self-proclaimed “Spruce Capital of the World.” The city has continued from strength to strength and has grown to become northern British Columbia’s economic, social, and cultural center.

Source: nwsource.com

Tourism Prince George, Cariboo Prospector, Prince George
(Tourist / visitor center)