Port Alberni: More Than Just a Mill Town

Any community that has ever been labelled a “mill town” carries both the promise of prosperity and the constant threat of collapse, its fortune hinging on a single industry whose performance is as much related to the whims of a global economy as it is to the abundance of a key natural resource. The people of Port Alberni, located deep in Vancouver Island’s Alberni Valley, know all too well the highs and lows that come with such a label.

Jan Peterson, who lived in Port Alberni for two of th...