Chetwynd

History

From 1918 until the 1930s, the present townsite hosted a trading post on a grassy pasture known to the Sekani and Saulteaux as Little Prairie. In the 1920s, settlers from the Peace River Country began migrating westwards across the frozen Kiskatinaw and Pine Rivers to lands assigned under the Dominion Lands Act for homesteading. Little Prairie was homesteaded in 1930 by Alexander and Lillan Windrem who cleared the land by 1935 for hay, oats and gardens. Oil and coal discoveries, west of Little Prairie, near Commotion Creek, led to the construction of area roads. As the area's natural resource potential became more apparent, a highway was planned in the late 1940s from the British Columbia Interior to the northern side of the Rocky and Omineca Mountains. The John Hart Highway, named after John Hart, a former British Columbia premier, was completed in 1952; designated Highway 97S it stretches from Prince George to Dawson Creek, with an intersection at Little Prairie. This was northeastern British Columbia's first connection with the rest of the province; previously a trip through the neighbouring province of Alberta was required. Following the opening of the highway, businesses such as restaurants and service stations were opened in Little Prairie to accommodate incoming workers and settlers. The first school was built in 1951. The railway station in Little Prairie was completed in 1959 and named after Chetwynd, who had died two years earlier. Soon afterwards the post office adopted this name. Chetwynd became the community's official name on 1 July 1959. In 1960, the Chetwynd Waterworks District expanded its mandate to include garbage disposal, fire protection, and street lighting. Led by its Chamber of Commerce, the community incorporated as a municipality on 25…

Geography

Carved out of an ancient floodplain, the small terrace upon which Chetwynd is situated lies in the northern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Once used as a grazing spot by nomadic Aboriginals, the terrace was farmed by settlers until it was developed into a town. Two types of soil—namely, the Widmark and Centurion Series—comprise the terrace's surface. The Widmark Series—a moderately well-drained degraded loamy, woody, silty, and clay-like soil—lies north of Highway 97. Meanwhile, the Centurion Series—which lies south of the highway—is a poorly drained soil with a dark-brown peaty surface material consisting of decomposed leaves and mosses. These soils, also limited by topography and stoniness, are generally used for forage and pasture. The town is surrounded by forested hills but the prairies of the Peace River Country begin here and continue eastward into Alberta. It lies in a transition area dividing two biogeoclimatic regions: the Boreal White and Black Spruce zone and the Engelmann Spruce-Subalpine Fir zone. The regions surrounding Chetwynd and Dawson Creek contain caribou herds, although the total number of caribou have decreased in the first two decades of the 21st century. One factor of the caribou's decline is the large number of wolves who prey on the caribou; in 2014 the British Columbian government began a wolf-culling program to reduce the number of wolves in the region. The region also contains moose, whose numbers have increased due to improved habitats caused by cutting down trees for the logging industry. The area surrounding Chetwynd was affected by a pine beetle infestation, which caused timber mills to reduce their operations in the region. The town experiences a cool continental climate, including cold winters and warm summers. Southwesterly…

Most-observed species

• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  196
• Black-billed Magpie

  Pica hudsonia (Sabine, 1823) · Aves
  155
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  150
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  145
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  145
• White-throated Sparrow

  Zonotrichia albicollis (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  145
• Dark-eyed Junco

  Junco hyemalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  118
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  110

Most recent

• M 4 — 2024-10-04
  52 km WNW of Fort St. John, Canada
• M 4.3 — 2018-11-30
  27 km SSE of Fort St. John, Canada
• M 4.2 — 2013-05-28
  18 km ESE of Fort St. John, Canada
• M 2.5 — 2012-10-24
  12 km NNW of Fort St. John, Canada
• M 3.3 — 2008-03-05
  8 km E of Fort St. John, Canada
• M 3.7 — 2004-12-27
  17 km NNE of Fort St. John, Canada