Fort Nelson is a town of approximately 5,000 residents in British Columbia's northeastern corner. It is the seat, and only municipality in the Northern Rockies Regional District. Fort Nelson is primarily a natural resource industry town, with the majority of economic activity in forestry, oil and gas. It lies east of the Northern Rocky Mountains in the Peace River region, along the Alaska Highway, where it is known as "Mile 300." (For more info see http://www.northernrockies.org/ ) Fort Nelson is the centre of the Greater Sierra oil field. Year round, the Town is home to over 4,700 residents while 1,600 additional residents settle in the surrounding Northern Rockies Regional District area including the Fort Nelson First Nations reserve. There are about 500 members living on the reserve, yet across our region, as a whole, Aboriginal people make up approximately 15% of our total population.
The community also experiences seasonal population increases. In winter, logging and oil rig activities bring in approximately 2,000 people and during the summer tourism season -April through September- about 140,000 visitors travel through the area.
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