Pacific

The Beginnings

Pacific began as an arbitrary point on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad – 125 miles from Prince Rupert and the first divisional point on the new rail line. When the highway replaced the railroad as the main mode of transportation in the northwest, the town died. However, in its heyday, Pacific was a classic example of a northern pioneer community.

The town site of Pacific is located 125 miles east of Prince Rupert, on the north side of the railway tracks, on the northwest side of the Skeena River. “As construction on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway pushed eastward from Prince Rupert, divisional points, selected at intervals approximately one hundred and twenty-five miles apart, were established to service the locomotives and their cars. Pacific… was the first of these” (Pacific – ghost town… 5). In 1909, a man named Jens Anderson, from Asase, Denmark, established a homestead on the banks of the Skeena at a place called Nicholl (McCubbin 3). In 1912 the railway purchased part of Anderson’s property and renamed it Pacific (after the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad). Mr. Anderson, with two partners, built the Nicholl Hotel.

By 1914, the railroad had built a large brick Roundhouse in the railway yard, a station house, and a restaurant.

GTP Train at Pacific BC Archives I-33745

Several small homes for employees were also built, as well as bunkhouses. In 1913, Pacific was made up of about 11 houses, a hotel, a general store, and a community hall. Mail was brought in by train every other day. The McCubbin’s General Store was also a telegraph station, part of the Dominion Government Telegraph Service. So even though the people of Pacific weren’t connected by road to the outside world, they did have regular contact. Many of the people of Pacific either walked to Usk (12 miles west) or Dorreen (6 miles east), or they took the train, which came by every other day. “Every second day it arrived going west about 5:30 p.m. and every other second day it arrived going east about 2:15 a.m. Terrace and Smithers pretty well bracketed our universe” (Neighbor 2). In addition to passengers, they carried in mail, foodstuffs they couldn’t grow themselves, Eaton’s catalogue orders and whatever else they needed to survive. “Of course it was the same for the other little towns along the line like Usk, Pacific, Cedarvale, Woodcock, etc. And still being the days of steam, one of my most evocative memories is the wail of a far-off train whistle on a cold winter night. I still think of it as the sound that connected us to the rest of humankind” (Neighbor 2).

The CNR Station at Pacific BC Archives E-06672

Life in Pacific until the 1950s

The people of Pacific lived a fairly self-sufficient life-style. Everyone planted their own gardens, dug wells for water, and used gas lamps for light. Heating was by woodstove, resulting in a number of house fires. Fire was the biggest enemy in Pacific.

People made their own entertainment. Adults played cards frequently in the evenings. The men always enjoyed a game of pool at Nel’s pool-hall (Nicholl Hotel) and games of poker too. Nels Thompson built a community hall and very enjoyable dances were held there. People came by train and speeder from miles around. Denis Horwill remembers Pacific holding dances at the dance hall every couple of weeks in the winter months. People from Usk and Dorreen attended, because you could catch a weigh-frame, which had a coach on it, down to Pacific on a Friday night and catch it back home Saturday morning.

Events such as soft ball also took place out in Pacific by the school grounds at the back of the community hall, and in Dorreen in front of the general store. The tournaments would go back and forth between the towns.

The children out in Pacific also had a wonderful time. “There was a good-sized slough about a mile and half long, near the river, fed by a couple of tiny streams. All summer long they swam and boated here, and in the winter played and skated on the ice. They built rafts and paddled them and on numerous occasions fell overboard. In the winter, the slough was used for skating” (McCubbin 8). Christmas concerts were held in the waiting room at the train station because it was so big; all the parents were able to watch. The first year children attended school was in 1916. Their teacher was Mr. Wheeler.

For the first ten years or so, the Nicholl Hotel and Pacific in general was quite a busy little place, but this eventually faded with the growth of Terrace. After the boom years of 1912 – 1920, business deteriorated and the partnership faded between Mr. Patterson and Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson kept the Nicholl Hotel, but with business slowing down, he also took on the job of ferryman. The ferry went back and forth across the Skeena to Legate Creek, where mining was being done. Unfortunately, Mr. Anderson drowned around 1920, leaving Mrs. Anderson to run the hotel alone.

Many families left Pacific and the population was 75 in 1928. Garth Griffiths was one who moved to Pacific in the 1930s to teach in the one room school. To him Pacific was defined by three people in particular: Nels Thompson, his sister Mary Anderson, and Tom McCubbin. He recalled that Pacific was also, literally, “a one-horse town… and Nellie was the horse. Tom McCubbin’s, of course”. Nellie was irritable, but it would do anything for Tom. According to Griffith, the dreams that these people had for Pacific were already starting to fade when the train station burned down in 1934. It was replaced with a box car on a siding, symbolizing the end of the railway building era.

However, Pacific was miraculously undamaged by the Flood of 1936.

Skeena River Flood at Pacific BC Archives E-00071

The railway line was completely flooded, but the actual town site of Pacific was across the slough on higher ground. There was no train service for three to six months after the flood though, and almost sixty miles on either side of Pacific was washed out. Otto Lindstrom, a former resident of Remo, recalls travelling with the railroad and being stationed in Pacific when the Flood of ‘36 happened. He was living in the box cars that were situated in the low part of town. A friend woke him up and they had to quickly move east of Pacific to escape the water.

In the forties and early fifties, Pacific picked up again due to the geopolitical circumstances of the Second World War. A support crew was stationed in Pacific to monitor armed trains carrying artillery guns regularly travelling to the base at Prince Rupert from points beyond. Prior to 1944 there was no road access along the Skeena to Prince Rupert. In 1941 a location survey was initiated to lay out a route on the south side of the Skeena River. A location survey crew made up of Mr. Horwill and 13 other men under the direction of a civil engineer from Victoria, was assembled at Pacific in late April 1941. Following Pearl Harbour in December 1941, highway construction was greatly accelerated. The highway was completed through to Prince Rupert from the east in early 1944 and officially opened in September 1944. But, when the war ended Pacific suffered yet again, particularly because in the 1950s the renamed Canadian National Railway built a spur line to Kitimat and relocated its marshalling yard to Terrace. Pacific rapidly declined as it became clear that future settlement would be on the highway side of the Skeena River.

“Out of the ‘risk capital’ from which it was born, Pacific bustled in the early days (1912-1920) but gradually became overshadowed by her westerly neighbour Terrace. In the early 1950s Pacific flickered into its twilight; finally snuffed in 1955 by the construction of the Kitimat Railway. Pacific suffered its last injury. No longer was it Mile O but rather Mile 25 – Terrace had officially usurped it as the divisional point terminus”. (“Pacific-Ghost Town…5)

The town limped along until the 1970s. Eileen Birkedal visited Pacific a few times during the 1950s. The old Nicholl Hotel was still running and was a popular place with those visiting from other locales. While waiting for the train, visitors could have a beer kept cool in the creek out back behind the hotel. A priest from Prince Rupert would come every so often to minister and would call the Nicholl home while there. At this point there still was a school, but it only had approximately 10 to 12 kids all in different grades. Their families were railway families; few others remained in Pacific. The men worked in the round house repairing train parts. When trains were modernized to diesel, a new servicing area was built in Terrace. Subsequently, most of the railway families moved to Terrace or somewhere else. The school closed shortly thereafter in the fall of 1957.

Pacific from the 1970s to the Present

Nels Thompson was the last of the pioneers of Pacific. In the early 1970s, Thompson fell ill and passed away in Terrace. His property at Pacific (which was most of the town) was bought at an estate sale from the Crown by Doug Aberley for $3,200. Aberley had dreams of bringing Pacific back to life with a colony of people living off the land, using alternate energy sources, and barter systems, and thus becoming a self-sufficient community. Doug Aberley hosted a town revival party on the weekend of May 20-22, 1977. Almost one hundred and fifty people showed up for the event.

“Upon arrival all were greeted with welcoming shouts and the pleasing warmth of fires blazing beside the tracks. After passing through immigration we all entered the ground of the Northwest Nation, otherwise known as Pacific. Doug Aberley welcomed visitors with the following – “This weekend is a time to celebrate the revival of Pacific as a living, small community. As you can see there’s lots of work to do, but the potential is here and the folks that are starting to call Pacific home are more than capable.” People shared the miserable weather, the brief flashes of sunshine, dripping tents, and laughing music, west coast halibut, clams, and Skeena salmon, and for a weekend the sound of people filled the town”. (Interior News, May 28, 1977)

A group of nine people purchased the town from Doug Aberley for $10,000, by forming a land co-operative – the Mid-Skeena Land Co-op. They lived in Pacific from 1978 to 1981, raising chickens and goats and rabbits, planting gardens, fishing, and playing music. By the time they moved in, the old Nicholl Hotel was collapsing and was seen as a hazard, so they collectively pulled the hotel down, reusing what was still good. Some of the old houses were still habitable, so the new residents refurbished these homes and moved in. They were also pleased to find the community hall intact. Like the earlier generation of Pacific residents, they also hosted dances and parties. Guests that came in from elsewhere could stay overnight in bunks in the hall. They raised several new buildings including a cabin and a two-story house. They also brought Pacific its first sauna. Occasionally, some of the residents left Pacific to earn cash by tree planting. After all, a self-sufficient lifestyle could not provide everything people in the 1970s needed or desired! They remember their time in Pacific fondly, but eventually each left because they had started families or had to seek more regular employment. Through the co-op they still retain ownership of the land.

In July 2005, our research team headed out to Pacific to see what was left and to get an idea of what these pioneers saw. The area was beautiful like all areas of North Western British Columbia, but there was not much there anymore. In fact, it was hard to see what had been there since the bracken fern had overtaken the fields and pathways in the town. Some of the original 1920s houses remained, but they were in poor shape with roofs and floors caving in. We were sorry to see the old community hall had collapsed into a pile of boards, and the one house that was constructed in the 1970s had been burned down. The sauna was still intact as was the cabin, which had signs of recent occupation. Pacific’s only current resident had left a note dated Jan 30 2005 indicating that he would be back, but that anyone was welcome to use the cabin, provided they cleaned up after themselves. Who knows what the future holds for Pacific? Maybe someday someone will try to make a future there again.

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Works Cited

Asante, Nadine. The History of Terrace. Terrace, BC: Totem Press, 1972.

Barnes, Patti. Interview. October 7, 2005.

Bennett, Norma V. Pioneer Legacy: Chronicles of the Lower Skeena River, Volume I.
Terrace, BC: Dr. R.E.M. Lee Hospital Foundation, 1997.

Bennett, Norma V. Pioneer Legacy: Chronicles of the Lower Skeena River, Volume II.
Terrace, BC: Dr. R.E.M. Lee Hospital Foundation, 2000.

Griffiths, Garth. “A Story of Pioneers of Pacific”. Smithers, BC: Smithers Interior News, August 17, 1977.

Horwill, Dennis. Interview. August 3, 2005.

Horwill, Dennis. “Surveying Highway 16 – Pacific Area”. June 2005.
http://www.terracelibrary.ca/history/dhorwill/horwill.htm.

Kerby, Norma. One Hundred Years of History. Terrace, BC: Terrace Regional Museum Society, 1984.

Large, R.G. The Skeena: River of Destiny. Vancouver, BC: Mitchell Press, 1957.

Lindstrom, Otto. Interview. June 13, 2005.

McCubbin, Ruth. Pioneers of Pacific, BC BC Archives. File number 2394 – MS 2394.

McHarg, Sandra and Maureen Cassidy. Early days on the Skeena River. Hazelton, BC: Northwest Community College, 1980.

“Pacific”. Prince Rupert Wrigley’s BC Directory. Prince Rupert, BC: Archives, Prince Rupert Regional District, 1928.

“Pacific – Ghost Town Revisited”. Kitimat, BC: News-Advertiser, February 26, 1974: 4-6.

Peters, Sheila. “untitled” Interior News. May 28, 1977.

Pioneers of Pacific, British Columbia. April 2001. August 2005.
http://communities.msn.com/PionerrsOfPacificBritishColumbia&naventryid=114.

McKinnon, James. “Little House on The Skeena”. Enroute, May 2004.

Neighbor, Howard. “Dorreen”. Tales of Long Ago. Terrace Public Library, 08 October 2005. <http://www.terracelibrary.ca/history1/stories.htm.>

Smith, Alisa. “Little House in BC”. Explore, June 2004.