Tumbler Ridge to celebrate history, legacy of community at Tumbler Tales book launch festival

TUMBLER RIDGE, B.C. — Tumbler Ridge may be known across Canada for a mass shooting that took nine lives in February, but a local event this summer aims to show more about its history.

The Tumbler Tales book launch festival, scheduled for several days in July and August, will pull back the curtain to reveal the community’s legacy. 

Events taking place during that time are a collaboration between the Tumbler Ridge Museum, Tumbler Ridgelines and writer Anne Mullens.

According to the Tumbler Ridge Museum’s programs and events coordinator, Caris Windhausen, plans for the event began late last year.

“[Tumbler Ridge] was one of the last instant towns [in B.C.] that was built up,” Windhausen told Energeticcity.ca. “The plan for August is to launch the book and bring people together to talk about the history of Tumblr Ridge from the 80s to today.”

At the centre of the festival is the book ‘Go North, Reporter,’ an upcoming work by Mullens.

Mullens was a reporter at the Vancouver Sun in the early 1980s, and the book is a collection of her pieces from the construction of what is now Tumbler Ridge.

An ‘instant town’ or planned community, according to the District of Tumbler Ridge’s website, a number of coal deposits were found in the area in the 1970s.

In 1981, an agreement was reached among the provincial government, Denison Mines, Teck Corporation and the Japanese steel industry, allowing the development of Northeast Coal to proceed.

The town, infrastructure and two mines were built from scratch by 1984.

The festival will feature a pancake breakfast, community games, a 1980s-themed dinner and dance and a book signing and reading by Mullens.

Early-bird tickets for the dinner and dance are $55 and are available at the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation’s (TRMF) website.

“[It’s about] having some spaces where we can talk and reminisce and consider the past and future of our town,” said Windhausen.

The Tumbler Tales Book Launch Festival will take place between Friday, July 31st, and Sunday, August 2nd. 

For more details, see the news section of the TRMF website.