Telkwa is a village located along

British Columbia Highway 16 Highway 16 is a highway in British Columbia, Canada. It is an important section of the Yellowhead Highway, a part of the Trans-Canada Highway that runs across Western Canada. The highway closely follows the path of the northern B.C. alignment o ...

, nearly southeast of the town of Smithers and west of the city of Prince George, in northwest

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada.

History

Settlement in the area began around 1904 in a townsite known as Aldermere on the hill above Telkwa. Around 1907, people began to move down the hill to be closer to water supplies and the anticipated route of the

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National Tra ...

. The name Telkwa is possibly an Indigenous term for "meeting of the waters" which appropriately describes the confluence of the Bulkley and Telkwa Rivers in town.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Telkwa had a population of 1,474 living in 562 of its 584 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 1,327. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Attractions

The history of the town can be explored at the Telkwa Museum and on a tour of the historic former town site of Aldermere. Telkwa hosts an annual barbecue and demolition derby on Labour Day weekend. The town also has Eddy Park, at the riverside with a small gazebo, right off the highway to sit and have a picnic and watch the Bulkley River go by. Fort Telkwa Riverfront Accommodations & RV Campground is situated on the Bulkley River just south of Telkwa on Highway 16. It stretches over a quarter mile along the Bulkley River, world renowned for its Steelhead fishing. There is a full service gas station, a convenience store and restaurant, building supply store, bar with a cold wine and beer as well as a fish truck on the bank of the Bulkley River at the end of Hankin avenue. There are 4 trails; The Hunter Basin Road which is 8 km long, Winfield Creek Road Trail, 12.5 km., McDowell Lake Trail 10.5 km and Telkwa Pass Trail 51 km long. Tyhee Lake and Campground is 2.6 kilometers north east of Telkwa and offers swimming, boating, biking and camping as well as great trout fishing. Tyhee Lake Provincial Park offers 59 campsites, 2 double sites and 4 tent sites.

Infrastructure

Transportation

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...

Jasper – Prince Rupert train Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> i ...

calls at the Telkwa railway station several times per week.

References

External links

* {{authority control Villages in British Columbia Populated places in the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako Bulkley Valley