Katherine Bickford

The Bowater pulp mill in Gold River ceased operations in February 1999

In 1964 the Tahsis company began building a 750 ton-a-day bleached kraft pulp-mill at the mouth of Gold River, because of the flat delta land, the deep-sea access for oceangoing freighters, and the steady source of water.

The Company also selected a site eight miles east of the mill on which to build a town to service the needs of the mill, and in 1965 Gold  was incorporated as a District. It reincorporated itself in 1972 as the Village Municipality of Gold River.

In the mid-1980’s, the mill added a paper manufacturing component, thus creating a short-term building boom and increasing employment. However, newsprint prices soon collapsed amid a glut of new supply, the cost of wood chips increased, and high interest rates proved so crippling that in 1993 paper production shut down. In 1999 the mill ceased operations entirely.