Tumbler Ridge

Tumbler Ridge is a town you have to understand from the ground up, because that’s exactly how it was built. Created out of the bush in the early 1980s, its sole purpose was to service the Northeast Coal Project. It’s a planned community in the truest sense, with a housing stock that is still nearly 70% single-detached homes built for that initial workforce. While tourism has made inroads, anyone looking at a deal here needs to be clear-eyed about its identity: this is, and always has been, a resource town.

The economy here is the whole story. The numbers tell it plainly: over 36% of the local workforce is in mining, quarrying, or oil and gas extraction. That concentration pushes the median household income to $101,000, but it also brings serious volatility. We’ve seen this movie before when major operations shut down; the town can empty out, property values swing, and sale timelines drag on for months. The recent 20% population growth looks good on paper, but it’s tied directly to the current resource cycle, not a fundamental shift in the economy. From a lending perspective, this single-industry dependency is the number one risk. We underwrite every file here knowing the town’s fortunes can turn on a dime with commodity prices.

What keeps Tumbler Ridge from being just another work camp is its surprising second act. When a couple of local kids found dinosaur tracks back in 2000, it kicked off a new trajectory for the town. That discovery led to major paleontological finds and eventually a UNESCO Global Geopark designation. This, along with an incredible backyard of waterfalls, mountains, and trails, has created a real tourism and lifestyle draw. It attracts a different kind of buyer: people looking for affordable homes with direct access to the wilderness. This provides some welcome economic diversity and a baseline of housing demand not entirely dependent on a mine’s shift schedule.

Let’s be honest, though. The climate is harsh—it’s a Zone 3b, meaning very cold winters and a short growing season—and the town is remote. It’s a specific lifestyle that doesn’t appeal to a wide market, which limits the potential buyer pool in a downturn. When we look at a file from Tumbler Ridge, we’re balancing the unique appeal of the Geopark against the hard reality of its economy. The risk of a long, difficult foreclosure process is very real here. That’s why our position is conservative. We will lend in Tumbler Ridge, but our maximum loan-to-value is 55.0%. This creates a substantial equity cushion to protect our investors and gives the borrower a buffer against the inevitable market swings. It’s the only sensible position for a town with this much potential upside, and this much risk.