Prince George, B.C. – Two years in the making, the party officially starts in the District of Mackenzie tonight.

Mackenzie was officially incorporated on May 19^th, 1966, and to celebrate residents and returnees will be partying through Monday.

“It starts tonight with our meet and greet wine and cheese at the curling rink,” says Celebrate Mack 50 advertising chair Catharina Callewaert.

“There’s a parade on Saturday, we have barbecues hosted every day by different industries or businesses in town. We have a band jam tomorrow night (not to mention opening ceremonies and fireworks) and breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning.”

She’s also expecting a lot of people who have moved away to return and take in the festivities this weekend.

“Just reading the comments on our Facebook page today alone there’s already a number of people on the road heading to Mackenzie today and then a bunch starting their journey tomorrow. We anticipate somewhere between 500-1,000 coming back. And then of course our community members.”

Callewaert says a survey of residents and returnees indicates most originally came to town for the same reason.

“99% of the people that came here, their parents came here for work and even myself, it was work that brought me to this small town and I’ve been here 10 years now and everybody has a two to five-year plan and then they stay for 40.”

Mackenzie Mayor Pat Crook first arrived in 1974 and is no exception.

“I was actually working in Scotland when I came here on holidays to visit some friends and I ended up staying and quitting my job in Scotland.”

So what’s kept him there?

“It’s a nice place to live, it’s a nice small community. You don’t have the traffic. I grew up in North Vancouver and to get anywhere there it’s an hour and a half now. So I enjoy the town, it’s friendly, got a low crime rate and it’s a good place to raise kids.”

Crook says everybody’s been looking forward to this weekend.

“It sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun, everybody’s all excited and chomping at the bit to get going.”