On Christmas Eve we went for a drive out the "East Line" which follows the Fraser River east of Prince George.
The term "East Line" came about as the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad was built and operated from 1914 to 1919 between Prince George and Jasper Alberta. In 1919 the Grand Trunk was nationalized and the name was changed to Canadian National (CN).
Along the East Line a series of small towns developed as section points that maintained the track in the age before centralized maintenance. In the early 1940s many of these small towns had sawmills open which diversified the economies of the small towns.
The East Line communities including Willow River, Giscome, Newlands, Aleza Lake, and Upper Fraser had regularly scheduled passenger rail service. Things were booming on the East Line until the early 1970s when Northwood Pulp bought up all the small independent sawmills and closed many of them to consolidate operations. One by one the small towns started dying as the mills closed and the CN Rail maintenance was centralized into Prince George and McBride to the East.
In 2003 the last sawmill on the East Line at Upper Fraser was closed marking the end of an era between Prince George and Jasper. trains still run on the East Line but there are many empty buildings and the towns are now gone, only a few families still live out this way. Only Willow River still has a store with perhaps 150-200 people living in town.
The logging trucks still roll down the East Line moving logs to Prince George Sawmill, we had to keep a sharp eye out to stay safe on Christmas Eve. I've included a few photographs from our little exploration. There are many more ghost towns farther out, but they are better explored in the summer.
Happy holidays!!
Dean.
