‘Alice Spoke Truth to Power’: Remembering BC’s Longest-Serving Mayor

Alice Maitland never made a big deal about being B.C.’s longest-serving mayor.

“I know it’s sort of a huge thing to be mayor for 42 years, but nobody cared,” she once shrugged about her decades in office.

But her time at the helm of the Hazelton village council was remarkable, putting her at the forefront of both the feminist and environmental movements, political colleagues say. She took pride in the village’s collaborative relationship with First Nations and was a fierce advocate for small, northern communities.

Maitland died Wednesday at Wrinch Memorial Hospital in Hazelton following a short illness. She was 91.

The former mayor is remembered for her compassion and strength — characteristics that made her successful at a time when few women entered politics.

“She was kind, generous and also steadfast and determined,” said Doug Donaldson, who served on Hazelton council alongside Maitland before he was elected as MLA for Stikine in 2009.

“It could also be a little bit disconcerting to people, because they would see this small, oftentimes soft-spoken woman, and they didn't understand the power that was behind that.”

Donaldson, who is currently writing a book about Maitland, says her life was filled with remarkable stories — like the time she decided to “sever her ties with the BC Liberals in quite dramatic fashion.”

It was March 3, 1995, and Maitland, previously a longtime Liberal supporter, was unhappy with the direction then-party leader Gordon Campbell was taking, believing he was moving the party’s politics to the right. When she arrived at a Hazelton café for a pre-election meeting organized by Campbell and saw a room full of “local conservatives and some ultra-conservatives,” Maitland believed something underhanded was afoot.

“She tore up her BC Liberal membership card in front of Gordon Campbell and threw it in his face,” Donaldson said.

Maitland was born in Hazelton in 1933 and served as councillor on the village’s first council from 1965 to 1971, before moving away for several years. She returned and was acclaimed as mayor in 1976.

Maitland was an outspoken advocate for rural communities at a time when logging operations were increasingly relocating to urban centres like Prince George.

The Village of Hazelton stood alongside the Gitxsan Nation in defending the community’s interests, and Maitland often joined the logging blockades that led up to the groundbreaking Delgamuukw court decision acknowledging Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en title.

“If I could, I was there,” she recalled in an interview in 2019. “Forestry was being managed without any regard for the territories and the Chiefs that owned it.”

It all came to a head, Maitland would later recall, when the NDP was in government in the early 1990s. The Hazelton village office and office for the Hereditary Chiefs fighting the Delgamuukw case blew the whistle on a conflict of interest that resulted in then-forests minister Dan Miller being removed from his position.

Miller, who briefly served as B.C. premier, later approached Maitland at a party in Victoria and accused her of ruining his life.

“I said, ‘I’m so proud!’” Maitland remembered with a laugh in 2019.

Donaldson, who was B.C.’s forests minister from 2017 to 2020, has described Maitland as a mentor. Last week, he recalled how the former mayor was treated “like royalty” at Union of BC Municipalities meetings.

When asked about these accolades in 2019, Maitland demurred.

“It’s young people like Doug Donaldson that make my mind wrap around new stuff,” she said. “I never feel like a mentor to any of those young people.”

Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Taylor Bachrach remembers Maitland as kind, compassionate and cheerful.

“She managed to be both that and fierce at the same time,” he said.

In an Instagram post, Bachrach wrote, in part, “Alice spoke truth to power and our region was better for it.”

Maitland had been “raising alarm bells” about the impact of boom-and-bust industrial development on small communities for decades, Bachrach added. His time as the mayor of Smithers overlapped Maitland’s years in office.

“As someone who loves small places and rural places, the way that she fought for them always stood out for me,” he said. “She had a big impact on a lot of folks, especially in the local government world.”

At a time when women with strong opinions were often “derided as shrill or unco-operative,” Maitland’s disarming nature won out, Donaldson said.

“She touched a lot of people across B.C., not just in the north,” he added.

Outside of municipal politics, Maitland had a varied career that included owning a dress shop, running a gas station and working as a travel agent. She also taught, originally in high school and elementary school and later in adult education, eventually becoming principal of the local college. “My heart was really in teaching and education,” she said.

Maitland received a number of awards, including the UBCM Long Service Award in 1996 and 2010, the BC Achievement Community Award in 2011 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

In 2019, Maitland reflected that it hadn’t always been easy being a woman in politics. But the difficulty never held her back.

“I didn’t have much of a voice unless I could get some men onside with me,” she said. But, she added, “It’s never shut my mouth.”

The position of Hazelton mayor is now held by Maitland’s daughter, Julie Maitland, who was elected in 2022.

In a recent social media post, Julie wrote that, in lieu of flowers, donations in her mother’s memory can be made to an Alice Maitland fund at the Upper Skeena Recreation Centre, or USRC, or through the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine.

“The USRC was one of our mom’s dreams,” Julie Maitland wrote, adding that her mother was among those instrumental in getting the facility built. “She really felt as a rural community that we deserved a beautiful gathering place.”