The Year of the Great fire

One hundred years ago, in May 1912, fire driven by strong winds swept through the valley from Moose Lake west along the line of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway. Construction was at its height in the Yellowhead Pass where thousands of men and horses laboured in the swamps and on steep mountainsides.

April had been unusually dry, and May very hot, making accidental fires almost impossible to avoid but as eyewitness Louis Knutsen commented, "The way the fire got through is that the railroad burned the slashing and paid no attention, they let the fire go," and go it did, from Moose Lake to Fort George and beyond, scorching camps and sending workers fleeing for their lives.

That spring the Teare brothers were sent by the railway contractors to survey the townsite at Mile 90 which was to be a divisional point, later to become McBride. They camped in a clearing on the flats above Dominion Creek, not far from the Fraser River. They had set up camp when the fire suddenly roared towards them. They are said to have taken refuge in the river until it passed, expecting to have lost their tent and supplies, but were surprised to find they had been bypassed by the fire.

Fires ran through the valley and up the south facing Rocky Mountain sides. The Cariboos with their north facing slopes were largely untouched, hence the survival of the ancient forest stands from McBride to beyond Dome Creek. This quote in the Fort George Herald of June 22nd, 1912, is from a long article describing the fire and its aftermath, "The upper Fraser valley ... has been denuded of timber as cleanly as a scorched rabbit."

Teare Mountain above McBride still bears the marks of the fire as do many others. Beside it, the Lookout Mountain has a trail which begins on Mountainview Road and winds up past the halfway cabin to the alpine and the 1930 fire lookout near the top. This is a scenic hike or drive in summer to various viewpoints for panoramic scenes of the Robson Valley, and a chance to imagine spending weeks alone, watching for fires in the forestry lookout cabin.

Marilyn Wheeleer, 2012