Nicola Valley, 24 miles south on Kamloops-Merritt Highway.
Back in the 1870s the bunchgrass here abouts came up to the horse’s belly. Some of the transient miners saw wealth in these broad rolling grasslands and swapped gold pan for saddle. In time several 'spreads' in the Nicola Valley grew to rank among the world’s largest cattle ranches. 'Cow country' it remains – its fortunes rooted in grass.
The Nicola Valley drains the region that starts near Douglas Lake and Nicola Lake in the east, westwards along the Nicola River to Spence's Bridge where it joins the Thompson River. The western end of the valley is home to the Nlaka'pamux First Nation, and the eastern portion is home to the Sce'exmx First Nation. The headquarters of the Nicola Valley Tribal Council and of the Sce'exmx First Nation are located in Merritt.
The Nicola Valley, with its rolling hills and lakes, attracted non-First Nations settlers as early as 1866 who raised beef cattle to be sent to the gold mines in Big Bend and the Cariboo, and later to the men building the Canadian Pacific Railway. Kamloops became a transportation centre on the old trail and, with the arrival of the railway, an important shipping point.
To the south lies cattle country with bunch grass, sage brush and sumac (a small shrub or tree with scarlet leaves in the fall). Low hills hide the extent of the cattle country. Prior to Meritt becoming the main town in the region, the town of Nicola grew at the eastern end of Nicola Lake. Many nineteenth-century structures remain, such as the Murray United Church (1876). The churchyard there contains some of the best preserved white marble tablets in BC. The courthouse and manager's house have been preserved and form part of a heritage enclave on Highway 5A. Nearby is the Quilchena Hotel, built ibecause it was expected that the railway would come through and the local coalfield would be developed. However, the railway went to Merrit instead in 1907 and Nicola and Quilchena lost their prominence in 1907.
But in cattle country, towns weren't as important and the great Guichon Ranch near Quilchena carried on extensive cattle raising over thousands of acres of the Quilchena Plateau, and half way between Kamloops and Merritt, the Stump Lake Cattle Co. had its centre. Nicola Lake was also home to a number of farms, and the first settler, Edwin Daily, homesteaded there in 1866.
Modern machinery and changes in technology have altered they way ranch work is done, and the great cattle drives belong to the past. But the basics of ranching have not really changed.
Resources:
Quilchena Hotel
» www.quilchena.com/
Nicola Ranch
» www.nicolaranch.com/tours.html#historic
Nicola Valley Museum and Archives
» www.nicolavalleymuseum.org/
