Vanderhoof Mayor, Gerry Thiessen says it was an overall good year for Vanderhoof despite facing pandemic-related challenges.
While provincial guidelines have put stress on Vanderhoof residents, Thiessen says a couple of sectors in the community managed to thrive with the help of some projects throughout the year.
“We were quite excited in January, we had Coastal Gaslink coming to town at the Airport and it came simultaneously on the fact that lumber prices were incredibly low,” said Thiessen.
However, this project was supposed to start around the beginning of the pandemic, which caused things to slow down dramatically in Vanderhoof.
“The Coastal Gaslink Project had around 800 people and brought in a lot of business which kept a lot of our businesses and restaurants very active, so we were pretty thankful for that” he added.
Thiessen also added that when New Gold sold out to Artemis Gold earlier this summer, that was a huge step for Vanderhoof as the Blackwater Gold project had been at a standstill for a number of years.
The Blackwater Gold project will hopefully diversify the Vanderhoof economy a little and create a more predominant mining industry in the area.
Throughout the year, Vanderhoof saw a healthy amount of rain which also benefitted the agriculture and farming sector in the area.
While the community maintained an overall healthy economy throughout 2020, Thiessen explained that the COVID-19 outbreak in Fort St. James put additional stress and anxiety on all Vanderhoof residents.
“As the University Hospital in Prince George started filling up, more people got better and then were sent to the Vanderhoof hospital in their own wing,” he explained.