Victoria, who staked the first homestead. Others joined them as they travelled through Edmonton, Dunvegan, and Fort St. John to found the communities of Beryl Prairie and Lynx Creek. Soon, as other settlers came, they built a post office, hotel, and church around the trading post. In 1923 settlers opened the first school. Coal was discovered a few years earlier and used locally. Commercial coal mining, attempted in 1923, was not successful due to the isolation and high transportation costs to other markets. Construction of the Alaska Highway in 1942 created a high local demand and stimulated commercial coal mining. Major development came to the rural area in the 1960s, when the provincial government planned and constructed the W. A. C. Bennett Dam and its associated Gordon M. Shrum Generating Station for hydroelectric power. Its construction involved thousands of workers; the project was served by the distant highway and railway to the south at Chetwynd. To help organize and finance the project, the Hudson's Hope Improvement District was incorporated in 1962 and the District Municipality of Hudson's Hope was incorporated 2 years later. The two incorporated areas merged in 1967 after construction was completed. As the reservoir was filled and the dam went online in 1968, most of the thousands of workers left for other areas. Soon afterwards a second dam, the Peace Canyon Dam, was planned and constructed, several kilometers downstream from the first. The second dam went online in 1980. The town has remained geographically isolated and is economically dependent on BC Hydro as its single major employer. It has marketed its isolation and extensive outdoor recreational opportunities as a benefit to living in the area. Geography and climate The main townsite is wide, long flat along the north bank of the Peace River, and the rural communities of Beryl Prairie, Lynx Creek, and Farrell Creek. The Peace River originates at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam from the Peace Reach Arm of Williston Lake and flows around the tall Portage Mountain and through Dinosaur Lake. The water is retained here for three days before being released to the Peace Canyon Dam. It flows northeastward past the townsite, and the rural communities of Lynx Creek and Farrell Creek, and eventually into the Arctic Ocean. The Hudson's Hope Suspension Bridge provides passage over the river near the town. The forested foothills of the Rocky Mountains, including Mount Johnson and the Two