2025 was a year of new beginnings, and tying up loose ends in the Northern Rockies. The regional municipal council approved new guidelines to uplift the community after a rough summer.
“We had fires to the north of us and fires to the south of us – nothing real close to the community, but at the same time, both of those fires were raging. (They) cut off all access to our community, so getting through that without any negative long-lasting repercussions was the highlight of the year for me,” said Mayor Rob Fraser, of the Northern Rockies regional municipal council.
In the summer of 2025, fires burned in Pocket Knife Creek and Summit Lake. The latter resulted in an evacuation order being issued for the Testa River area, which was rescinded on June 18.
For council, Fraser said outside of the fire, it was largely bear-siness as usual. A priority as they entered the year was finalizing a government transfer policy. It would “leverage (the regional municipality’s) resources to support community services beyond standard municipal offerings,” according to their draft plan from October.
“There (were) some negative reactions from the nonprofits when we were trying to get the government transfers policy in place. Essentially, we froze all of the nonprofits at budget time last year at the (same) rates as the year before – so we didn’t give any increases. We still funded them,” said Fraser, describing the rocky process of passing the policy.
“Once we got the government transfer policy into a draft form, and we rolled that out, and we were looking for input from all of the nonprofits. We went to all of their boards, and we explained the policy and were looking for feedback and got some. We changed the policy and finally we’ve got it done. One of the things for 2026 is getting that implemented.”
In December, the Official Community Plan passed in the Bear Pit. It was a priority identified by Fraser and his councillors at the beginning of the year as the previous document was a testament to times passed in Fort Nelson.
“Completing the Official Community Plan for a community like ours’ is a bigger accomplishment. It (was) 2011 when that plan was developed and there was a bit of an update in mid 2016, 2017 – but really that plan didn’t reflect the way our community looks today,” said the mayor.
Looking to 2026, when the regional council reconvenes on Jan. 12, its leader said they will continue working on their government transfer plan and, if the budget allows repaving efforts around the community will continue after last year’s 44 Street project.
The council is also waiting to hear back from their application to be on Hometown Takeover Canada on HGTV. Staff applied in the fall, but have not heard back yet, according to the mayor.
“It was a down to earth look at what’s happening in Fort Nelson. We’ve been kicked in the teeth a little bit economically, as well as, with the fires. I think somebody’s just looking for a spark of something different,” he explained.
Fraser said he believes Fort Nelson is this “spark.”
