DAWSON CREEK

city, northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The city lies along Dawson Creek near the Alberta border. It has the Mile Zero post marking the beginning of the Alaska Highway and is a terminus of the British Columbia Railway from Vancouver (741 miles [1,193 km] south-southwest) and the Northern Alberta Railway from Edmonton (360 miles southeast). The economy depends largely on agriculture (especially grain and forage crop seed), livestock raising, lumbering, tourism (hunting and fishing), trucking, and oil refining. Laid out about 1919, it was incorporated as a village in 1936 and developed after the completion of the Alaska Highway to Fairbanks during World War II. Inc. city, 1958. Pop. (1991) 10,981.