Adjacent to the community lies the North Thompson River, the Yellowhead Highway (#5), and the Canadian National Railway.

Franklin Allingham was the first European resident in the upper North Thompson valley before the railway arrived.

Weyerhaeuser retained logging rights in the area, keeping the local loggers and foresters employed.

The Canfor mill which had been indefinitely closed in 2009 due to poor market conditions reopened in September 2011 after $24 million in capital upgrades, and in January 2012 it added a second shift for a total of 145 jobs restored to the local region.

Yellow Head Mining Corp also purchased the old Weyerhaeuser mill site as an ore handling facility in 2012.