Incumbent Gina McKay is the mayor of Stewart by acclamation. McKay ran unopposed.
Incumbent councillors Neal Rowe Gina McKay and Eike Riemann were re-elected, along with newcomers Jim Hyslop, Jason Hill, Maureen Tarrant and Steve Howe.
Below is the full list of mayoral and councillor candidates in Stewart.
Candidates
Mayor:
Gina McKay (incumbent)
Council:
Sylvia Alderton Goulet (incumbent)
Adrian Eigenmann
Viri Gomez
Jason Hill
Steve Howe
Jim Hyslop
Dave Johns
Mitch Kovats
Jason Levesque
Patty Lynn (incumbent)
Eike Riemann (incumbent)
Neal Rowe (incumbent)
Maureen Tarrant
Referendum question:
Are you in favour of reducing council size from six councillors and a mayor to four councillors and a mayor?
Applies to following electoral areas:
- Electoral Area A (Wynndel/East Shore-Kootenay Lake)
- Electoral Area D
- Electoral Area E
Boundary
Stewart is located in northwestern B.C., along the Canada-U.S. border with Alaska.
Population (2016)
401
History
The area that now encompasses the District of Stewart was once home to the Indigenous Nass River people, where they hunted and picked berries.
The head of the Portland Canal is also known as “Skam-A-Kounst,” which has been translated as “safe house,” which could refer to a place that the people would hide when the Haida invaded.
Development of Stewart began with the arrival of prospectors who were looking for the Nass headwaters. It didn’t work out, but one of them stayed, and other settlers followed.
Two of those settlers, the Stewart brothers, developed a town that would bear their name.
More prospectors would come, but it would be years before Stewart would grow as a mining town.
The Big Missouri and River Side mines went into production, but they would decline with the 1929 economic crash, alongside numerous other mining facilities.
Both had closed by the early 1950s.
Then the Granduc Mine would begin operation in the late 1950s, extracting minerals from an ore body of copper.
The company that ran the mine would later undertake construction of the world’s longest tunnel, giving them access to their Leduc copper ore body. The project would run into disaster following an avalanche in 1965, though it would be completed in 1968, lifting Stewart’s economy.
Though once again, the mine would endure cutbacks amid a slow market for minerals.
Median total income of couple economic families with children (2015)
$116,480
Political representation
Federal
Nathan Cullen (NDP)
Provincial
Doug Donaldson (BC NDP)
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