Tumbler Ridge is a district municipality in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Peace River Regional District. The municipality of 1,558 square kilometres , with its population of 1,987 people, incorporates a townsite and a large area of mostly Crown Land. The housing and municipal infrastructure, along with regional infrastructure connecting the new town to other municipalities, were built simultaneously in 1981 by the provincial government to service the coal industry as part of the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation's Northeast Coal Development. In 1981, a consortium of Japanese steel mills agreed to purchase 100 million tonnes of coal over 15 years for US$7.5 billion from two mining companies, Denison Mines Inc. and the Teck Corporation, who were to operate the Quintette mine and the Bullmoose mine respectively. Declining global coal prices after 1981, and weakening Asian markets in the late 1990s, made the town's future uncertain and kept it from achieving its projected population of 10,000 people. The uncertainty dissuaded investment and kept the economy from diversifying. When price reductions were forced onto the mines, the Quintette mine was closed in 2000 production and the town lost about half its population. Coal prices began to rise after the turn of the century, leading to the opening of the Peace River Coal Trend mine by Northern Energy & Mining Inc. and the Wolverine Mine, originally owned by Western Canadian Coal, which was purchased by Walter Energy in 2010.After dinosaur footprints, fossils, and bones were discovered in the municipality, along with fossils of Triassic fishes and cretaceous plants, the Peace Region Paleontology Research Center opened in 2003. The research centre and a dinosaur museum were funded in part by the federal Western Economic Diversification Canada to decrease economic dependence on the coal industry. In 2018, the museum to change its operations from science-based to tourism-attraction.In 2014, both operating coal mines were put into care and maintenance mode. This means the mines are effectively closed, but are still allowed to restart without needing to go through the process of getting a new mines act permit. Economic diversification has also occurred with oil and gas exploration, forestry, and recreational tourism. Nearby recreational destinations include numerous trails, mountains, waterfalls, snowmobiling areas and provincial parks, such as Monkman Provincial Park, Bearhole Lake Provincial Park, and Gwillim Lake Provincial Park.
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