South Peace Historical Society

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    • About Dorthea Horton
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  • Table of Contents

    • Part 1: First Nations of the Peace River Region
    • Part 2: The Fur Trade Era
    • Part 3: Transportation and Communication
    • Part 4: Old Timers and the Price of Land
    • Part 5: Dawson Creek: The Story of the Community
    • Part 6: Mysteries, Adventures and Indian Legends
    • Part 7: Arts, Crafts and Recreation
    • Part 8: Agriculture
    • Part 9: Church Histories
    • Part 10: Schools
    • Part 11: Health Care
    • Part 12: Industries and Enterprises
    • Part 13: Policing the Peace
    • Part 14: Pouce Coupe, Rolla, and Other South Peace Communities
    • Part 15: Chetwynd and the Fort St. John Area
    • Part 16: The Alberta Peace
    • Part 17: Natural History of the Peace River Region
    • Part 18: Interviews with Old Timers
    • Part 19: Remembering Our Veterans

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BN05-39: Peace Separation Won’t Work, Says Old-Timer Activist

Recent History – 2000

Feb. 18, 2000

By Mark Nielsen, Daily News Staff

Dawson Creek old timer Ralph Thomsen, who was part of a Join Alberta Association in the late-1940s, wishes the best of luck to latest movement to make the Peace part of the Wild Rose province. But he doubts they’ll get very far.

“There’s no way B.C. is going to let us go,” he said. “It would be just like losing the goose that laid the golden egg here because we’ve got the dam and we’ve got the oil and they’re putting millions of dollars into the coffers every year.

“They’re not going to just let us join Alberta.”

Thomsen was part of a movement that agitated for joining Alberta primarily because the only road heading out of the Peace at the time went east.

“We had to go through Edmonton and then down through the Big Bend to get down to Vancouver and to get to our capital,” he said.

The effort was enough to make politicians in Ottawa and Victoria take notice he said. By 1951 there was a road connecting the Peace to Prince George.

Thomsen doesn’t take all the credit for the improvements that were made. He said the election of W.A.C. Bennett as premier was the major turning point.

“As far as I was concerned, until Wacky Bennett got in, the rest of B.C. went up as far as Hudson Hope. And then beyond that they knew nothing about it, or practically nothing,” he said.

But while he doubts it would ever happen, Thomsen believes that the Peace would be better off in Alberta, in part because we’re a lot closer to Edmonton than Victoria.

“And our whole economy is with Alberta. The gas, the oil, the farming, the whole thing,” he said.

“The border has been a big sore ever since they started the seven per cent tax and Alberta didn’t have one.

“Yeah, we’d be better off in Alberta, by far.”

Even if those behind this latest movement fall short of their objective, Thomsen said it would still be worthwhile because it will force politicians to take notice. “Anything to wake them up,” he said.

This article is taken from the Peace River Block Daily News, Dawson Creek, with the permission of the publisher. The Daily News retains all rights relating to this material. The information in this article is intended solely for research or general interest purposes.

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