100 Mile House (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

ECONOMIC CHANGES

100 Mile House confident in rebounding economy after exit of West Fraser

Jan 7, 2026 | 4:37 PM

100 MILE HOUSE — Back in November, West Fraser announced the permanent closure of its operation in 100 Mile House, citing timber supply challenges and soft lumber markets. 

Every mill job in B.C. is said to directly spin off to support three additional workers. The 165 job losses in 100 Mile House, with the departure of West Fraser, are expected to impact the entire community.

“The bigger picture is those jobs are gone, and those where high paying jobs and they have outreaching effects. One of the workers, his wife was a nurse, so are we now going to lose other professionals?” said Mayor Maureen Pinkney. “No one in our community is untouched by something that large.”

100 Mile House is well aware of the challenges hampering the forestry sector in B.C., now losing three operations over the past decade. The mayor, however, is hopeful of it’s return to the district, perhaps in the value-added space.

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“We are hoping to see some new developments. We are still surrounded by wood. We can still have some type of wood product out of those mills,” said Pinkney. “We are looking forward to, hopefully, some kind of mass timber, finger-jointing, some kind of plant here that we can stay in forestry.”

“At some point, the province has to figure out how they can rewrite this book on forestry because what they have been doing the last ten years in clearly broken. It does not work. They should go back to the old days when things were working,” added Pinkney. “It’s a crop. It’s our renewable resource.”

With the mill now quiet, focus in the community has shifted to diversifying the economy, looking to attract new residents and businesses to town.

“When we are talking with the community and when we are talking with the council and businesses themselves, we end up staying positive,” said South Cariboo Chamber of Commerce President Jamie Gauvin. “If we go negative, we aren’t going to go anywhere from that, so staying positive and seeing what we can do and looking for the future. Not what we are going to do tomorrow, it’s down the road — what are we going to do to build 100 Mile?”

Those in the community echoed the need to bring more business to town and expressed confidence in 100 Mile House attracting new business.

“You need infrastructure to attract new people and you need good infrastructure to attract young families,” said resident Doug Witty. “We need to continue to invest in that stuff, and that is hard to do without a primary economy. Like I say, there are good things going on but we are definitely in a little bit of a soft spot right now.”

“Basically, 100 Mile exists on tourism, but with the mill collapsing, you have to wonder what kind of industry is going to pick up the slack,” added Murray Lissner. “At the present time, I haven’t heard of anything that is going to pick it up.”

While there is overall agreement throughout the community that better days are indeed ahead, diversifying will likely be a bumpy road.

“We are looking at a lot of other things happening in our commercial areas where there are people actively looking at most of our vacant sites right now,” said Pinkney. “We are very hopeful. One door closes, one door opens, and we are hoping that is the case here.”