Upper Fraser developed between Aleza Lake and Hansard on the southwest side of the Fraser River in central British Columbia. The community of about 20 residents comprises a post-office and several houses straddling Upper Fraser Road.
Transportation.
A trackside signpost marks the flag stop for Via Rail's Jasper – Prince Rupert train. The immediate Via Rail stops are Aleza Lake to the west and McGregor to the southeast.
History.
Railway.
Upper Fraser lies at Mile 104.0, Fraser Subdivision. Previously designated as Mile 194 and the Hudson Bay Spur, it was the closest railway point east of Willow River for accessing the Fraser. During 1914, Edward Andrew Seebach (1880–1932) (Seeback alternate spelling) and Albert James Huble (1872–1947) (Hubble alternate spelling), and farmer George McDowell, their agent, regularly advertised their weekly passenger and freight motorboat service to Giscome Portage, which connected with the waterways to the Peace Country via Finlay Forks. Five years later, the opening of the Prince George–Summit Lake wagon road superseded this route.
A steamboat service from Prince George operated into the 1920s. The spur also provided the best link to the outside world for mining and hunting activities to its north and northwest that encompassed the river and its tributaries. Unlike the unsafe and difficult Giscome Rapids downstream, calm waters prevailed upstream to the spur. However, winter freezing, limited river use to summer months.
In May 1913, during the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway construction, the Smith and Ramsay camp was just northwest at former Mile 195, and their engineer, F. Purvis, was just southeast at former Mile 193. Although variations of the name Hudson Bay Spur were in use until the 1930s, the 1920 description as the Hudson Bay’s old spur suggests the actual spur had fallen into disuse by that time. Largely known as Upper Fraser Spruce Mills from the early 1940s, the Canadian National Railway station was called Upper Fraser from 1964.
During the 1945/46 winter, when a brush with a freight train broke a moose's leg, a rifle shot put the hobbling animal out of its misery. Rather than plunging into the deep snow flanking the roadbed, moose often ran ahead of trains for miles, which delayed services and hindered section crews (track maintenance). Vicious moose not only challenged trains, but also charged children on their way to school, or adults walking along the tracks. During the 1948/49 winter, a snow plow travelling at scooped up William John Zuck lying on the tracks. The plow train's crew car carried the victim to Prince George, where a hospital examination found no injuries.
A westbound freight train instantly killed deaf George Whitford (1885–1965), who was sitting upon the track at Upper Fraser. The following year, a washout west of Aleza Lake terminated a westbound passenger train at Upper Fraser. The mill cookhouse fed the passengers, who remained on board. Towed through heavy mud and deep holes by bulldozers near Giscome, three buses brought eastbound passengers from Prince George, and returned with the westbound ones. In 1968, a railway accident cost H. Dyck two toes.
In 1978, Upper Fraser was one of the 11 communities between Prince Rupert and the Alberta border, where the CNR replaced its agent-operator position with a resident serving as a CN Express agent.
Forestry.
The narrow strip of accessible spruce forest bordering the railway that stretched some east of Prince George was known as the East Line. Reputedly, a small mill existed at the location in 1928. 
In 1935, Donald (Don) S. McPhee (1892–1964), formerly at Sinclair Mills, and A. Roy Spurr (1885–1954), formerly at Penny, partners in the Giscome mill, acquired and relocated the equipment from the bankrupt Longworth Lumber Co. The following year, pioneer lumberman George Stauble (1898–1971) supervised the reconstruction. Incorporated as the Upper Fraser Spruce Mills, the 40,000-foot per shift capacity modern mill opened in 1939. That year, the three mills controlled by the partnership produced almost 60 percent of the lumber in the Prince George district. Cecil T. Clare (1905–85) came from Sinclair Mills in 1937 to manage the 100-man company. He was president of the Northern Interior Lumberman's Association (1945–48 and 1959–60).
From 1940, Clare largely replaced horses with vehicles for hauling logs from the bush. C. Merle, his wife, was active in the local Red Cross fundraising efforts. The company logging Camp 13 temporarily closed for a week in 1942, while the crew went to fight a forest fire at Purden Lake. During the 1942/43 winter, a falling tree fractured logger Albert Roussin's skull, and a decking hoist employee at Camp 15 badly burned his face when a blow torch, thawing an engine, caused a gas tank explosion.
During the following winter, snow accumulation collapsed the roofs of a bunkhouse and barn at Camp 17. Eight escaped unhurt, one sustained concussion, and another suffered minor facial injuries, but a horse died. When braces broke weeks later, the released large deck of logs fatally crushed George Swan (1894–1944). Employees contributed to a collection for his widow. While riding the steam-powered saw carriage, which steadily moves a log through the saw blade, dogger Albert Anderson (1925–44) encountered a sudden failure of the steam feed valve. The uncontrollable carriage forcefully ejected him, fatally breaking his neck. In 1945, logger Adolf Bruestle (later at Aleza Lake) sustained extensive facial abrasions at Camp 17. Two years later, James Ernest Clish (1927–87) lost a leg in a mill accident. Although the 1949 fire totally consumed the mill, the rebuilding project took only three months.
Falling branches or tree trunks killed company loggers Jean Ouellette (c.1927–50) and Emanuel Zielke (1927–50), prompting calls for better training. Mile 98 (McGregor) was the next logging camp. When the government introduced forest management licences that year, Upper Fraser Spruce Mills was among the first five approved in principle within the Prince George district, and quickly granted. Logging moved from the Bowron River to Mile 98. (Nick) Vid Tomich (1893–1958) sustained fatal spinal injuries after tumbling from a 12-foot-high lumber pile. A year later, the company received one of the nine tree farm licences that followed from the 1956 Royal Commission Report.
In 1960, Don McPhee and Cecil T. Clare sold Upper Fraser Spruce Ltd. for almost a million dollars to National Forest Products Ltd. (NFP) (formerly Midway Terminals Ltd.). Soon moving to Vancouver, Clare was chair of Canadian Lumber Standards (1962–71). Already owning Sinclair Spruce Lumber Co. Ltd., NFP appointed E.R. McDonald as general manager for both companies. Within a year, the Noranda Mines Ltd./Mead Corporation partnership established Northwood Pulp and Timber Ltd., which acquired the above operations. The next year, John R. Blackstock became general manager. A heavy plate falling from a crawler inflicted fatal head injuries upon mechanic William (Bill) H. Chance (1921–62), who had recently transferred from Sinclair Mills. A 1964 fire destroyed a diesel generating unit and part of the mill powerhouse.
In the late 1960s, the mill underwent a major expansion. After voting in favour of strike action, the IWA strike at BC interior mills ended the following month in the north, but in the south lasted seven months. The 480,000-foot capacity Upper Fraser operation provided woodchips to Northwood Pulp in Prince George as a by-product. The mill built and equipped a recreation centre, catering especially for the 100–130 single employees.
Another round of strike ballots began in October 1970, which led to a wildcat strike, before employees at Northwood sawmills at Eagle Lake and Upper Fraser, along with Its McGregor logging camp, ratified the proposed contract settlement. A strike vote followed when the 1972 contract negotiations broke off. An alleged unjustified disciplinary action by a supervisor, an open sewage system, and sham safety procedures, prompted an illegal walkout. Workers returned after a couple of days, but walked out again within two days, when the company refused to promise that strikers would not receive disciplinary action. An injunction forced employees back within two days.
In 1973, a freight car shortage increased finished lumber inventory. When exacerbated by a nationwide rail strike, all five northern BC sawmills operated by Northwood Pulp and Timber closed for a week. A year later, weakened lumber markets resulted in massive layoffs at Northwood's Houston and Upper Fraser sawmills, and reducing to single shifts from the fall. The seven-week BC Rail strike, which ended in January 1975, hampered woodchip shipments to the Northwood pulp mills. However, it did not delay the Upper Fraser sawmill reopening after the Christmas/New Year break. The pulpworker strike months later put many sawmill employees on indefinite layoff, owing to a lack of burning capacity or space to store the chips. IWA members at Northwood sawmills, having accepted their latest contract, continued on the job despite the ongoing pulp mill strike. In 1977, the IWA was pressing for one province-wide set of negotiations, while employers in the north, which included the Northwood sawmills, clung to separate talks. The following year, owner-operators of logging trucks protested their compensation rates.
Surpassing earlier upgrades, the company installed a new double-cut bandsaw and lumber sorter in 1978 in a $6.4 million modernization to improve the mill's efficiency. Paul A. Calder (1931–79) died of asphyxiation after falling into a hog fuel intake bin. Northwood sawmills at Prince George, Upper Fraser, Shelley and Houston supplied half the woodchip requirements for the Prince George pulp mill. With weakening market demand during 1980, Northwood temporarily introduced a four-day workweek at all sawmills except Shelley. The following year, lack of progress in contract talks led to illegal strikes, which included Upper Fraser. The summer province-wide strike lasted six weeks. A month later, Northwood sawmills temporarily implemented four-day workweeks.
In early 1982, with the ongoing market slump, the Upper Fraser mill further reduced output from 80 percent to 60 percent by laying off indefinitely 117 out of 251 employees, and adopting a one-shift five-day workweek. To reduce energy costs, the mill installed new burners that consumed wood shavings instead of natural gas or propane. The process heated oil for circulation to drying kilns and the mill itself. The company consolidated all vacation time into a four-week period to shut down the mill for the summer. The next summer, the mill returned to two shifts and the workforce totalled 1,000.
Rolling strikes throughout the north during 1986, which escalated into a four-month province-wide woodworkers strike, resulted in a moratorium on contracting out work normally performed by union members until a royal commission had studied the issue. The following spring, mill employees and the Upper Fraser volunteer fire department tackled a huge fire in the log deck area. Their 1954 Thibault fire truck ran nonstop for 36 hours, assisted by the company's helicopter hauling water to drop on the burning logs and a fire bomber dropping retardant. After protecting the mill and the town since the 1970s, the department acquired a replacement fire truck. Northwood donated the Thibault to the Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum in 1999.
Bandsaw operator Shirley Anne Elaine Peterson (c.1952–88) sustained fatal injuries when pinned between lumber and a roller case. Later that year, market conditions necessitated a two-week shutdown. To secure log supplies months later, Northwood increased subcontractor payment rates to improve compensation for logging truck owner-operators. In 1990 and 1993, disputes triggered brief walkouts.
The 1990 $16.5 million modernization, which closed the mill for several weeks, was far more extensive than the rebuilds in the 1950s, 1968, and 1978. New computerized equipment controlled thinner saw blades and edgers that maximized the amount of square lumber from each round log, but eliminated 10–15 jobs. An additional wood waste burner lowered emissions. Capacity increased to 960,000 board feet. The next year, the second shift was dropped for four weeks. A 1994 mill fire damaged wiring for the cut-off saws which turn log stems into desired lengths. During 1995, a new edger-optimizer was installed, and a single shift operated for eight weeks over the summer.
A 1997 fire, on a sub-zero January night, destroyed the primary breakdown area where the logs entered the mill. The volunteer fire department was able to save the other half, housing the head rig and high-tech equipment. The larger machinery, like cut-off saws, debarkers and canters sustained $20–30 million of damage. (The latter is a moving deck that cuts round logs into a square shape for processing as lumber, while the curved parts move on to become chips for a pulp mill). The planer mill, operating a single shift, continued processing existing inventory and lumber trucked in from elsewhere. After