When a pair of Fort Nelson timber processing plants closed eight years ago, the town didn’t feel the impact right away. For many workers, finding employment in the booming Horn River natural gas play was relatively easy. But with hundreds of oil and gas jobs wiped out by the economic downturn, the regional municipality’s plan to revitalize its timber sector is taking on new urgency. “Right now, the forestry industry is just about devastated,” Mayor Bill Streeper said. “(But) the forestry died the same time the natural gas took right off, and a lot of people just switched over from one to the other.”.. Before the collapse of the U.S. housing market in 2008, Fort Nelson was home to Canfor OSB and plywood plants that employed around 500 people, and enjoyed a reputation as one of the province’s most prosperous timber towns.
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