Laurie Hooker remembers the knock on the door, the friendly face, the basket.
It was 1986 and Hooker had moved from Vancouver to a Prince George rental house near the Pine Centre Mall. The city at the time, she said, was not the ideal landing spot for a woman in her early twenties, a mill town still swaddled in bush. She found a job at an answering service, fielding calls for businesses after-hours in that time before voicemail, and began taking messages from those new to town for a service so ubiquitous even then it was a well-worn popular touchstone - the Welcome Wagon.
She passed on the messages and mentioned she was a recent resident to Prince George. Hooker booked an appointment, little knowing, two years later, she would be among those rolling out the Welcome Wagon - or that she would one day look back on three decades of the city's newly arrived, married, born and retired as perhaps the last Prince George representative of a North American tradition.
"I had a visit from Bess Bowman, whose family was quite integral in the community and she was a hostess for (around) 25 years," said Hooker. "She made me feel a whole lot better about living in Prince George. She brought this basket full of stuff, for businesses in town, restaurants, the garbage pickup schedule, because that was Prince George's best-kept secret. She told me all about Prince George, the things I could do, and invited me to go places.
"The one place that's still a sponsor, they've got to have been going (with Welcome Wagon) for fifty years or more, is The Northern (hardware and furniture store). I can remember going in there with this card and before I could see anybody, talk to anybody, there was a lady welcoming me, asking me where I was from. It just really made me feel welcome."
Fifty-eight years before Hooker's visit with Bowman, a Memphis, Tenn. business named Thomas Briggs found himself inspired by stories of covered wagons laden with food and water greeting travelers heading west. He created a network of hostesses who would personally deliver baskets full of gifts provided by area businesses to people new to town and then chat about their community.
In 1988, Hooker was approached to join the organization as Bowman was retiring after a quarter century of work in Prince George. She figures Welcome Wagon was going well before Bowman, providing a knock on the door and a friendly face Hooker would continue too many times to count.
"Some visits would last twenty minutes, some would last two hours depending on what people would ask and what they wanted to know," said Hooker. "I (would be) energized about making people feel as welcome as Bess made me feel welcome... (That) was the whole reason why I thought being a Welcome Wagon person would be cool, so I could give back and make people want to stay in Prince George.
"People would ask where's the best Chinese food or where's the best drycleaner? Little facts like there's 144 lakes within an hour's drive that you can explore."
The only snag she's ever really encountered is that many people can't understand there's no strings attached to the basket.
"There's some people that don't get it, they don't get that it's free, it's really meant to welcome," she said. "They're like what am I going to sell them...
"People are also like, you're still around, I didn't know you still existed, I get a lot of that."
She watched as whole parts of the city sprang up out of the trees (and "we're not as retail starved as we used to be"). The Heritage section of Prince George was being built as she began with Welcome Wagon as was the top end of College Heights, around Southridge.
"The community was really growing," said Hooker, who reckons that growth began to taper off about a decade ago. "I can remember doing a visit, there was only one house at the end of that road (in College Heights). Now, you wouldn't know all of that was just bush.
"There's a lot more for kids to do then there used to be. I used to say Prince George didn't know it was a big town, it still had that small-town feeling about it. Now, the crime is here, those kind of things have caught up with it but I still think that there is a sense of community in Prince George. I love that, that volunteerism that steps up to the table when you need it too."
Today, Welcome Wagon in Prince George is a desk and some supplies in Hooker's basement along with help from her daughter Leandra.
But at its height during her tenure, Prince George once took the title of Canada's Welcome Wagon community of the year and Hooker has held the title of Hostess of the Year. Her basement was stuffed full with shelves laden with Welcome Wagon gear as a contingent of 10 handled everything from bridal and baby shows; senior showcases; and packages for students coming to CNC and UNBC.
And then there was the program for new mothers, which was her main focus. For 25 of her 27 years working with Welcome Wagon, Hooker estimates she visited 20,000 new babies and mother in Prince George during daily trips to the hospital, providing packages of information and offers for the newest of arrivals.
"On a good month, it could be 140 babies a month," said Hooker. "I visited one young mom and her mom said, 'You visited me in the hospital.' Babies I visited as babies were having babies.
"Just getting to see new babies everyday, the joy that new moms are... they were very appreciative. It just doesn't happen a lot anymore, people getting things for free."
A few years ago policy changes at Northern Health prohibited Hooker and Welcome Wagon from directly dropping off packages to new families. Instead a brochure recommending new families register for a package was given out, drastically reducing, said Hooker, the number of parents who opted into the program.
Now Welcome Wagon is changing. Much like the alteration to the baby program, new arrivals to Prince George can register for packages, by phone or online, and, if they have questions, a contact person will be provided.
As of July 15, said Hooker, there will be no representatives based in Prince George.
"I sort of knew change would come, because the American side changed well over 10 years ago," she said. "I do like the traditional what-people-expect and it really did (give) me that feeling of welcome.
"There will be a bit of a hole in my life but I'll fill it."
It's one more new thing Laurie Hooker will welcome.
