A commemorative book will soon be in the works to celebrate Quesnel’s 100th anniversary.
Jeff Norburn, the Director of Community Services, went over some of the details at Tuesday (March 3) night’s City Council meeting.
“The city was incorporated as a village municipality on March 21st, 1928, so the city will be celebrating its centennial anniversary in two years in 2028. In anticipating of the upcoming centennial anniversary an allocation of $12,500 was included in the city’s 2026 budget to develop a community history book commemorating 100 years of Quesnel.”
The total cost is expected to be around $33,000.
Norburn noted that the city was also applying for a grant.
“The commemorative book is eligible for grant funding through the Federal Government’s Community Anniversaries-Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage grant and would be part of a larger application to celebrate the city’s anniversary year.”
He said the deadline for grant application is April 27th, 2027.
However, it is expected to take two years to develop and publish, requiring some work to begin this year.
Norburn said book sales would also offset some of the costs.
Mayor Ron Paull had some ideas on what he’d like to see in the book.
“Past Quesnel heritage books have consisted mainly of family histories. My hope would be that this centennial book would be more about the history and achievements of the community itself, predominantly the town of Quesnel and now the City of Quesnel. I would look for some information and actually a chapter on the evolution of the municipality itself.”
Community engagement is also going to take place to provide input on the book with those meetings starting this spring.
That would include representatives of indigenous communities, government organizations, heritage organizations, the business sector, educational institutions, health institutions, and arts, agricultural, senior, and other community organizations.
Other projects and/or events are also expected to take place to celebrate 100 years.
To that end, Councillor Laurey-Anne Roodenburg suggested creating a committee.
“I would like to suggest that we look at creating a committee that starts looking at what kind of events that we’d like to have to celebrate, because they do have financial implications and I know that we need to have our finance committee figure out where the money comes from, how we’re going to get it, etc. I think the sooner that we start looking at organizing some kind of a planning committee so that we can start getting a budget together so that we can start looking at where our funds come from, the better off we’ll be for this major event.”
The vote to celebrate 100 years and to write the book was unanimous.
