Mackenzie, British Columbia
Site Number: 29
CSD (1991): 5953033
Principal Researcher(s): Greg Halseth
Assistant Researcher(s): n/a
The community of Mackenzie is a resource-dependent, single-industry, "instant town". Located in north-central BritishColumbia, the community was founded in 1966 in conjunction with the massive hydroelectric project which created the WillistonLake reservoir. The Mackenzie townsite was developed to be the processing centre for a regional forest industry. At present, two large sawmills (Finlay Forest Products and TimberWest) and a pulp mill facility (Fletcher Challenge) provide nearly all basic sector employment. With a local population (1996) of approximately 6,000 people, a small support service and local administration economy has also developed.
Site information
The town was planned and developed by the original forest industry company (British Columbia Forest Products) using new town planning principles. The design problems of transplanting a suburban, southern-Canadian, residential setting to northern BC is graphically shown in the National Film Board's "No Place for a Woman" (c.1979).
Three "geographies" are important in local economic development planning: 1) dependence upon the forest industry sector continues, 2) its location about two hours drive north of Prince George generates considerable retail sector leakage, and 3) its location 40+ kilometres off the main highway gives little opportunity to take advantage of passing tourist and commercial traffic.
Documents
These documents summarize the work completed and insights gained from updating Economic Capacity Profiles for the New Rural Economy2 (NRE2) sites. The initial set of Profiles was based on the 1996 Census and 2001 NRE site profiles data. The updated Profiles are based on 2001 Census data and 2003 NRE site profiles data.
On the map
