(Opinion) Bear Flat Dispatch: Looking back to 2016 and the difference a decade makes

BEAR FLAT, B.C. — There have been a lot of changes in the Peace River Valley in the last decade.

Here is an opinion piece that I wrote on January 1st, 2016 about our New Year’s Eve celebration on the banks of the Peace River at historic Rocky Mountain Fort:

On the south bank of the Peace River, just a short distance upstream from the mouth of the Moberly River, is the site of historic Rocky Mountain Fort in northeast B.C. It was established in 1794 by the North West Company as a fur trading post and is the site of the earliest caucasian settlement in mainland BC.

While no structures still stand, this site has tremendous significance to both whites and Indigenous people, marking the abrupt change of lifestyle for First Nations, and led to eventual settlement of the north by whites.

The ongoing lack of recognition of this important historic site by both the federal and provincial governments has been shameful and is long overdue.  Now, with the start of construction of the Site C dam just a short distance downstream, Rocky Mountain Fort is in danger of being lost forever under almost 200 feet of water. In fact, the old-growth timber on the river flat where Rocky Mountain Fort sits is scheduled to be logged this winter.

In late November 2015, various concerned First Nations from Treaty 8 and various landowners and locals established a protest camp at Rocky Mountain Fort. Then a cabin was moved onto the site in the last week of December.  

Several people from this group decided to ring in the 2016 new year from this camp.  As part of the festivities, an excerpt from the Fort Journal from January 1st, 1800 was read:

“The men around daylight fired a few shots at my window and came into my room and I gave them each a couple of drams and ½ fathom tobacco.  Each spent in all about five pints rum and five fathoms tobacco.  Connoye and Cantaras fought together and the latter gave the first a pair of black eyes and the best drubbing that ever he got in his life…” 

Fortunately, the new year of 216 years later was brought in somewhat more ‘civilized’. 

However, flooding of river valleys for hydroelectricity in 2016 is not civilized, and this will be a huge black eye to the Peace River Valley and all of B.C. if allowed to continue.