The Story of Ranching in BC: Buckaroos in BC
Early Cattle Drives
“What they did, they just simply started the cattle in the general direction they wanted to go. They had their chuck wagon and their blankets and their food and they lived off the country to some extent. And certainly the cattle lived off the country. And their only concern was keeping on good grass. And fifteen miles a day would be a big long day for them, more like ten and possibly there’d be days where they didn’t move at all maybe or maybe only two or three miles if there was bad weather, something like that. And I can just well imagine the misery they endured. Wet blankets no doubt from the rains and poor food and lack of it I’ll bet many times and just generally a very hard life.” “It was not uncommon to have snow ten feet deep going into Barkerville in the early days. All their meat was brought on into Barkerville on the hoof. And the whole town, the whole area would be waiting for the first cattle drive in the spring where they could get a feed of fresh beef. It was a time of celebration and everybody would be very elated and they would be throwing on parties and so on and so forth. The beef drive in the spring of the year was something to look forward to.”
