While all of our forestry staff were still reeling after been given their pink slips, we still had to deal with the big job of emptying out our office. In our office, all of the government files, desks, and equipment had to be packed up and shipped up to the Regional Office in Prince George, either to be refiled and used there or to be auctioned off. Beside the office equipment, we had a big warehouse full of fire fighting equipment and supplies, as well as other items that were used for the field work we used to to. The photo below shows one-sixth of our warehouse.
I was several times tasked with driving a large truck full of office and warehouse items up to the government auction building in Prince George. It was not an enjoyable experience seeing the vast amount of tools we used to work with disappear.
McBride is a very small and isolated village, and I wished some of Forestry’s fire fighting equipment could have stayed in the community in case of an emergency, rather than being stationed 135 miles (220 kms) away. It was quite a blow; not only did forestry jobs disappear, but also many jobs at our Provincial Highways Office when the government made severe cuts in McBride. The terrible loss of good paying government jobs led to a very difficult economic situation for our community, as employees and their families had to move away.
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