Ranchland: British Columbia's Cattle Country

Nora D.S. Robins is liaison librarian in the University of Calgary
Library.

The cowboy is as much a part of the history and development of British
Columbia as is the trapper, miner, logger, and fisher. However, it is
the cowboy who stands out in the popular imagination as the icon of the
west. Ranchland goes beyond romantic images and profiles two-dozen
working ranches in the Cariboo, Chilcotin, Thompson, Nicola, and
Okanagan regions of British Columbia. These ranches range from small,
two-person operations to such corporate giants as the Douglas Lake
Ranch.

The cowboy entered the province’s history in a major way with the
discovery of gold on the Fraser River and its tributaries. Drovers
brought livestock from Oregon to the Okanagan in 1858. Some of the
drovers decided that it made more sense to raise the cattle closer to
their market. The combination of a ready market, access to grassland, a
plentiful supply of water, and a generally law-abiding population
attracted men (and women) who were prepared to put down roots and cattle
ranch. Many of the ranches survive to this day (the Gang Ranch,
Quilchena Cattle Company Ranch, Guichon Ranch, Lauder Ranch), while
others represent a new breed of ranching operation (Fennell Ranch, Bear
Claw Ranch).

Ranchland is beautifully illustrated and informative, providing a
unique portrait of the rancher and cowboy from the days of the gold rush
to the present. It’s a delight to read. The authors know their subject
well. Diana French was a reporter and then editor of the Williams Lake
Tribune. She is the author of The Road Runs West: A Century Along the
Bella Coola/Chilcotin Road (1994). Photographer Rick Blacklaws’s book,
The Fraser River, won the 1997 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize.