A mayor in B.C.’s central interior where the forest industry has been hit hard in recent years says his community has found a way to rebrand.

Quesnel mayor Bob Simpson says he can’t speak for what other impacted communities should do specifically, but says his city has positioned itself as a safe, affordable place with good recreational amenities.

“Because most of the workforce these days on the higher-end, are what I would call a migrant workforce. They have a home base, but they work in different places depending on projects. They go back and forth to the oil and gas sector, or they work in camps associated with LNG. And where they park their families really doesn’t matter anymore,” Simpson says.

“What we did is we looked at what our strengths are, and the fact that we are on the confluence of the Quesnel and Fraser rivers, we are community with some of the lowest housing (costs), market housing and rental housing, in the province. And we decided that we could rebrand ourselves as a place that people could come to choose to live in.”

Communities like Quesnel, Clearwater, Vavenby and Merritt have been rocked by news recently of mill closures and curtailments.

(Photo: City of Quesnel)