Fort Nelson was established as a trading post in 1805 by the Northwest Fur Trading Company, and was named for Lord Horatio Nelson, the English Admiral who won the Battle of Trafalgar.

The present townsite is actually the 5th site of Fort Nelson with the first trading post located around 40 miles west. Floods, fire, clashes between the trading post personnel and the local Aboriginal population, and the demands of the fur trade account for all these moves, with the community finally settling at this spot with the coming of the highway.

The biggest factor in Fort Nelson’s growth was, of course, the establishment of an airport as part of the World War II Northwest Air Staging Route in 1941, and the construction of the Alaska Highway that followed in 1942. Fort Nelson went from about 200 to about 2000, virtually overnight.

Click here to read "THE FORT NELSON STORY" by local author Gerri Young