The section of Highway 97 stretching 405 kilometres between Prince George and Dawson Creek — called the John Hart Highway, or just the Hart Highway — is named after British Columbia’s 23rd premier, John Hart. Hart led a coalition government — BC’s first — from December 1941 to December 1947. A bespectacled man with a…
Prince George motorcycle enthusiasts held their first annual toy run — to collect and donate Christmas gifts for needy children — on the first Sunday of October, 1982. However, the inaugural charitable event didn’t initially generate the type of community reception that riders were hoping for. “We had a heck of a time giving away…
The mouth-watering promise of freshly-roasted chicken may have lured shoppers through the automatic sliding doors of Prince George’s new 17,000 square foot Overwaitea Foods grocery store when it opened for business on April 23, 1969. Located at 1601 Victoria Street, an address today occupied by Wholesale Sports, the bright new store featured Northern British Columbia’s first…
It was the end of an era. This week in 1915, the Hudson’s Bay Company closed, for good, its old “Fort George” trading post near the junction of the Fraser and Nechako Rivers. A fixture in the area for almost 110 years, the post was a catalyst behind the eventual development of the Prince George…
Before the provincial government established an office in the district of Fort George, men looking to pre-empt land in the area faced a long and daunting process. Applicants were required to correspond with government agents working in offices hundreds of miles away, relying on letters carried by sternwheeler, stagecoach and dogsled to complete the multi-step…
The roar from the skies that afternoon must have been deafening. At 1 p.m. on Thursday March 27, 1941, eight U.S. Army bombers rumbled into Prince George and circled the town, landing one by one on the municipal airfield. The Douglas B-18 Bolo bombers and their combined crew of 37 American airmen were travelling from Tacoma,…
The Road Home 