"North to Alaska, go north, the rush is on," Johnny Horton sang in 1960.
And they still head that way today, tourists in their motorhomes, fifth wheels, trailers and campers, often passing through Prince George, either on the way there, on the way back or both. Prince George offers three different routes there: west on Highway 16 to Kitwanga, then north on Highway 37; all the way to Prince Rupert and then on the ferry; or north on Highway 97 to Dawson Creek and then the legendary Alaska Highway.
Unfortunately, Prince George doesn't capitalize on much of that tourist traffic. As Bill McFarlin rightly pointed out in his letter to the editor in Wednesday's Citizen, Prince George has a horrible reputation in the RV community.
The popular RV sites and blogs don't have a lot of good things to say. The local private parks are on the city's outskirts and well away from shopping and other amenities. There are no free public dump stations, no free potable water filling stations and no available parking downtown for anything bigger than a camperized van, unlike many other communities on the road to Alaska.
Prince George's private RV parks have battled to varying degrees over the years for city bylaw officers to stop the RVs passing through from staying overnight in the parking lots at Walmart, Treasure Cove Casino and elsewhere, arguing that it's bad for their businesses.
That not only hasn't worked, it's simply given Prince George a continent-wide reputation as a place to pass through to a community far more friendly and accommodating to RVers.
The City of Prince George could change that quickly but it would require some bold decisions and a new vision for the junction of Highways 16 and 97.
One option would be to convert and/or expand the P.G. Playhouse into a tourism information centre, renovate the Roll-A-Dome into a facility that would also offer laundry and showers, bring in free dumping and water stations and develop the surrounding site as an RV park.
Visitors would love being next door to an 18-hole golf course, tennis and pickle ball courts, a short walk from a shopping mall, across the highway from a casino and just down the road from more retail outlets, including Superstore and Costco. More importantly, all of those neighbours would love to throw open their doors (and open their cash registers) for that new business.
The city could either develop the location on its own or through a public-private partnership with a developer and then put the operation of the site out to tender for a private contractor, which would allow the current RV park owners and operators a chance to get in on the action. The Roll-A-Dome would have a new life and the Playhouse's new multi-purpose role would make it far busier and more financially feasible than it is now.
With a local musical production of Anne of Green Gables about to take the Playhouse stage for the last two weeks of July, imagine visiting RVers staying an extra night to take in some top-notch entertainment as part of their stay.
And if that location isn't big enough, perhaps the city needs to look at also reacquiring the land next door that is still sitting empty, awaiting the development of a Pomeroy hotel.
And if that location doesn't work, the city has Pine Valley, a perfectly good 18-hole par-3 golf course nearby that could be taken down to nine holes, with the other half developed for a public RV park and free water and dumping location.
Besides the obvious significant revenue opportunities for municipal government, such a facility would go much further than any Tourism PG marketing campaign in restoring Prince George's reputation among RVers and the broader tourism sector as a place that opens its door to visitors (who then open their wallets while they're here).
The status quo regarding RV traffic heading to and from Alaska clearly isn't working. Every RV that passes through is a lost opportunity and lost dollars to the city.
If the city is serious about attracting tourists, it's time RVers were offered something more than an invitation.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
