F
r o m 2,000 feet above the city of
Dawson Creek, snow-dusted Peace
Country shows o its riches in the after-
noon sun. The rolling landscape is a patch-
work of •elds and forests, criss-crossed
with •nished and un•nished pipelines.
Scattered in all directions: huge natural gas process-
ing and compression plants, oil and gas wells large
and small, and drilling rigs, many sitting on farm-
land. Our 1963 Cessna, ƒown by private pilot Garth
Walter, ƒoats over hillsides cleared of trees, their
trunks stacked like toothpicks. Before returning to
town, we survey groundwork for the controversial
Site C hydro dam on the banks of the Peace River.
My host and constant companion for this two-day
March visit to northeast B.C. is Dawson Creek's gre-
garious mayor, Dale Bumstead. The province's long-
awaited lique•ed natural gas industry may be stalled,
but as Bumstead notes, that isn't stopping Encana
Corp. and other players from spending billions on
exploration, processing and pipelines in the Peace.
Extraction costs are low, and they want to be ready
to supply
LNG plants on the coast. Also, the local
32 BCBusiness dECEMBER/JAnuARy 2018
Peace
Train
dAwsOn CREEk is BEnEFiTinG FROM A
suRGE in nATuRAl GAs PROduCTiOn
ThAT dEFiEs ThE lnG nAysAyERs, BuT
EnERGy is JusT OnE PART OF ThE nORTh
-
EAsT CiTy's diVERsiFiEd ECOnOMy
best
citi
for work
IN B.C.
p h o t o g r a p h b y k a t i e t a n n e r
