Events from 1947

Remembered as the year of an intensely difficult winter, the coldest temperature recorded was minus 52 degrees Fahrenheit, and a ten-inch snowfall occurred during one week in February.

The Prince George Board of Trade lobbied the federal government’s Minister of Transport to declare the airport a port of entry and exit, thus making the city a stopover point for international flights.

School District 57 trustees protested the order from the federal Department of National Defence to disband the school cadet corp. The order for disbanding was motivated by a cost-savings plan to reduce the 4,188 cadets in B.C. to just 1,800. Cadet instructors at the schools were asked to have all equipment laid out and ready for inspection and packing at the end of the school year. In Prince George, 36 boys were affected.

A new golf course was being developed at the site of the former airport along the Vanderoof highway. The CN Railway loaned one of the country’s foremost experts in golf course design, W. H. Brinkworth of Jasper, to lay out the course. The designer claimed the Prince George Golf and Country Club course had potential to become one of the finest in Western Canada.

Radio Station CKPG changed its wave-length to allow for wider broadcast coverage. This repositioning meant moving down the dial. CKPG made its last broadcast on August 31 at the 1230 position on the dial. The next morning, it moved to 550, the position on the radio dial the station has inhabited comfortably ever since.

Returning soldiers boosted the city’s post-war population to 4,000. This put an extra strain on the hospital, which could accommodate only 32 patients. The Prince George Citizen took up the cause, advocating to all levels of government that the hospital qualified as a "distressed area" and was worthy of assistance. The Junior Chamber of Commerce raised $1,500 for a new operating table. By fall, consultants were called in to examine and reconfigure hospital systems and services.