An engineer and his
journalist partner give
up the suburban life for
a whole new way of living
in Fort St. John—number one
again on our list of B.C.'s
Best Cities for Work
by Abby Wiseman
p o r t r a i t b y B e n j a m i n h a a B
Life in a
Northern
Town
JanuaRY 2016 BCBusiness 39 bcbusiness.ca
o
n an early morning this past
fall, Joe Moser was getting
ready to leave home and go
to work when he was stopped
suddenly in his tracks: there,
standing beside his truck in
the driveway, was what he
describes as a "monster of a
thing": a huge mother moose. With her
calf grazing in his garden, mother moose
wasn't going anywhere—and neither, it
turns out, was Moser.
Life is a little different in Fort St. John,
human population 22,000 (moose popu-
lation: unknown). Moser, a Surrey native,
moved to the city 18 months ago. He
had been working for Nu-Westech in
Richmond as a junior structural engineer-
in-training when his girlfriend, Bronwyn
Scott, was offered a job as a reporter at
the Alaska Highway News. Moser started
calling companies in Fort St. John for
project management positions. He found
the only structural engineer in town,
retiree Jim Jarvis, who passed his phone
number on to Grande Prairie-based engi-
neering firm Beairsto & Associates—who,
within the day, called Moser and asked
f o r W o r k i n B . C .
