Ranches

While the Upper Columbia Valley is defined by the mountains that flank it, the benchlands around the Windermere Lakes and the Upper Columbia River are attractive for farming and ranching. Local Indigenous residents took advantage of this landscape as grazing lands, and they managed the vegetation so that there were wide, open grasslands amongst widely spaced trees. A wide variety of berries could also be found in the valley.

As British Columbia entered Confederation in 1871, a transcontinental railway was promised, and the development and growth of western Canadian became central to government goals of creating a permanent and strong national economy. This eye towards western expansion was encouraged by a decreasing amount of free farmland available in central and eastern Canada, driving many young men to leave home in search of opportunity. Many made their way to one of the rapidly growing cities of central Canada and the United States, while others looked to the large amount of land to the west. At first this western migration was a trickle but, coinciding with the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, an estimated 166,000 immigrants moved into the North-West Territories between 1881 and 1886, the majority being Canadian born, and most from Ontario.[1]

While separate from the North-West Territories, land policies in British Columbia also encouraged settlement. Newly arrived settlers – white men of a certain age – could choose to either pre-empt (claim for cultivation) or purchase up to 320 acres of land at a time. In the case of pre-emption, so long as they lived on the land for two years, made a certain value of “improvements”, had the land surveyed, and made the necessary payments, they could apply for legal title.[2] In the case of purchase, the residency and improvement requirements were waived. An individual could only hold one pre-emption at a time but, in practice, private sales also took place between individuals without the intervention of the government.

It is notable that the provincial government firmly held the position that Indigenous residents held no hereditary claim to the land, a stance encouraged by federal legislation that deliberately differentiated between an “Indian” and a “person”.[3] A Dominion Indian Commissioner visited the valley in 1884 to allocate Reserve land to the local ?akisq’nuk and Secwépemc First Nations, but this was not a treaty negotiation. The Commissioner decided what land ought to be set aside for the exclusive use of Indigenous people in order that the rest of their hereditary land could be settled by newcomers.

As construction of the CPR through Golden allowed easier access to the Upper Columbia Valley, increasing numbers of settlers arrived with dreams of land ownership. The geographic isolation of the area meant that commercial agricultural production remained out of reach, so most farms and ranches of the valley were geared towards producing what was needed to live. The surplus was sold locally, but this market was small and fluctuated dramatically along with the mining-based resource economy, mirroring its booms and busts. Early settlers had to have a certain degree of self-sufficiency, and to make ends meet, many landholders supplemented their living through other means: farmers were also miners, packers, or worked on government contracts, and hunting and fishing were crucial to supplementing their food supply.

Until 1915, transportation of supplies into the valley, and goods out of it, was done only seasonally via steamboat, a means that was both slow and somewhat unreliable. The Kootenay Central Railway, which connected the CPR at Golden with the Crowsnest Pass line near Fort Steele, promised quick and reliable access for agricultural goods from the valley to prairie markets and elsewhere in British Columbia.

In many ways the railway, completed in late 1914, was a boost to local farming and settlement. In anticipation of its construction, several orchard companies were formed in the area to construct large-scale irrigation works and sell land to prospective farmers. This was part of a trend in the early twentieth century that extended across British Columbia. Encouraged by early fruit-growing success in the Okanagan, and influenced strongly by a conservative backlash in the British Empire to the rapid urbanization of the Industrial Revolution, British Columbia was promoted as a utopia where middle-class British professionals and retired military members might establish a perfect society. Central to this society was to be a series of small-scale fruit farms, which would secure residents not only financial prosperity, but also cultural and physical rejuvenation.[4]

The orchard craze in the Upper Columbia Valley did not live up to its promise. There were delays in establishing working irrigation systems and the short growing season was not suited to commercial fruit farming, not to mention the unexpectedly high cost of living in the valley. The outbreak of the First World War also proved a turning point, as many new arrivals to the area left never to return.

The broad optimism that characterized the years before the war was muted in the years following. Ranching and subsistence farming continued, however, and with the railway connecting the region with the outside world, commercial production became easier. While the valley has never competed as an agricultural powerhouse when compared to elsewhere in the province – the Okanagan, Fraser Valley, or the Creston Valley – it has held its own and even excelled in certain limited fields. Award winning cattle, sheep, poultry, and potatoes have been produced in the area. A few of the ranches and farms, begun over a century ago, continue to the present day, although the increased size of commercial, industrial operations elsewhere on the continent has dwarfed local capacity. The need for subsistence farming has disappeared, and much of the ranch and farm land in the area has been subdivided into lots for residential real estate. The dream of land ownership in the valley continues, although it often now comes in the form of second homes rather than making a living.

The topic of ranches and farms is a large one. If you’re interested in early settlement and private land ownership in the area, start with the posts on Edmund T. Johnston and the Hardie family; for more on some of the larger ranch properties in the area see the posts on Firlands, R.S. Grant Thorold and W.L. Hawke (early owners of the Royal Antler Ranch), and J.M. Hurst (Hidden Valley Ranch); and for those curious in the valley’s orchard craze, best start with a combination of posts on J.M. Gibbon and Peters Hill (re. the Toby Benches), and W.H. Gaddes (for the Edgewater orchard scheme). There’s a whole lot more here, so dig in!