It was the end of a long-running era Friday when what will be the last-ever auction at Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers' Prince George yard was held.
Hundreds packed the expansive facility to get deals on used equipment - from logging trucks to bulldozers to diesel generators - and the news it will be closed at the end of the year came as both a surprise and a disappointment to many.
"This is bad for the north," said Shea Long.
The closure will create a measure of inconvenience and uncertainty for many in the region, according to the Houston-based field mechanic and equipment operator.
"It's going to be a big change," Long said. "We're not going to be able to send all our stuff down to the auction here at Ritchie's like we did before.
"We're going to have to find alternative routes, guys are going to have to be sitting on cash. It's like you can just send it to the auction and have a guaranteed cheque. If you take it to a dealership, it can sit and sit and sit for a couple weeks until you get the right guy to come and buy it."
The auctioneering giant has had a presence in Prince George since the mid-1960s. Previously located at the corner of Highway 97 and Old Cariboo Highway, it moved to its present and significantly-larger home at Highway 16 and Old Cariboo in 2003.
The Prince George site is one of five properties Ritchie Bros. is closing down - all four others are in the United States - as it works to consolidate facilities into larger centres.
Brian Glenn, the company's senior vice president and head of sales for Canada, has said the sites slated for closure all relatively close to other larger locations, "and in most cases, have been sending a lot of equipment to these sites for the past several years."
In all, 790 items were put on the block in Prince George on Friday. By comparison, an auction Tuesday in Grande Prairie, Alberta featured 2,534.
But Fort St. John logger Joe Bergen was in Prince George even though Grande Prairie is a scant 2 1/2 hour drive away because here is where he could find the equipment he's looking for.
"This is more logging oriented," Bergen said. "Grande Prairie is a little bit more construction oriented and Edmonton is very much construction oriented."
He said the next closest yard that moves the kinds of items he is looking for is in Chilliwack and the cost of shipping something out of the Fraser Valley community is $3,000 to $4,000, much more than the $1,000 to haul a piece from Prince George. which is less than half as far away.
It will also be a blow to Prince George itself. Along with the convenience for locals, it has also drawn many from out of town, providing a boost to local hotels and restaurants.
"I think it's a loss, certainly for the community," said Shel Harris. "It brings a lot of people in, if you look at the parking lot and you look at the licence plates."
The auctions are not exclusively about heavy equipment. Harris said he would look for all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles when he ran a small business in the city.
Jason Cinnamon, a heavy duty mechanic, drove in from Valemount for the day. In part it was to see what's for sale but it was also a social thing and he doubts he will drive all the way to Edmonton like he has to Prince George.
"There are a lot of people who come from wherever they are to Prince George because it's such a central location," Cinnamon said. "Especially the contractors, I think, are going to live without because the cost of taking your equipment to the auction has gone way up through the roof.
"A lot of people do the online thing but instead of hauling it from say Terrace to here, they've got to all it from Terrace to Chilliwack or to Grande Prairie."
Ritchie Bros.' Glenn has indicated sales representatives will still be based in Prince George and off-site auctions remain a possibility depending on interest.
What will be done with the building and site was a source of speculation - Glenn has also said there are no immediate plans for disposing of the property but the company will entertain offers.
Given its proximity to the airport, converting it into an inland warehouse was raised as a possibility by one auction-goer while another suggested it would make a good training centre for fledgling heavy-duty equipment operators.
"It's a great building, it's got a lot of potential," Harris said. "Too bad we're losing the auction part of it."
