vr Gas 4 Prince Rupert Daily News Monday, December 16, 1957 f mre ’ VANISHING SCENE — These cowboys riding the range near - Riske Creek in the Chilcotin district, a vast rangeland plateau “175 miles north of Vancouver, may be part of a vanishing séene in British Columbia. More and more of the wealth of the province's interior is coming from forestry and mixed farming. Grass-fed cattle are losing out on the market to-grain-fed cattle from the prairies. (CP Photo) Not Just Five-Day Week caer ne ——~In Longest Cattle Drive By ERWIN FRICKE Canadian Press Staff Writer -QUESNEL, B.C. (CP)—The ruddy-cheeked cowboy with the 10-gallon hat, worn leather chaps and fringed buckskin jacket seemed more frontiersman than modern-day rancher. And he was plumb. dis- gusted. “They’re not producing | fel- lows today with any get up and go,” said Floyd (Panhandle): Philips. Phillips had just trailed | in some white-faced cattle to a stock sale in this Cariboo town “from his ranch 200 miles west. “The cattle drive is said to be the longest in North America. -FOR WORKERS ONLY “It’s a wonderful country if “your: vision and staying power .are for 50 years. and not for the five-day week,” he said, enthusi-. castically describing‘ to a reporter , the possibilities of his wild fron- ‘tier cattle kingdom 400 miles “north of Vancouver. ..,“There’s still lots of -country ‘put not many fellows with the gumption to go after it.” -At.47; Pan Phillips is a legen- dary figure in the northwest Cariboo. . oo! , In-the*early 1930s he and an- E M™inerican, mich Hodson, came to British Columbia to look for a ranch in unsettled and un- explored country. Their search took them on ‘horseback through the vast rangeland of interior B.C.’s Chil- cotin Plateau to Anahim Lake in the lee of the coast mountains. They settled north of the lake. Hobson wrote of their adven- _.tures in two books, Grass Beyond the Mountains and Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy, both good sellers. ANNUAL DRIVE For the last dozen years Pan has made the 19-day trail drive | Yule Spirit ~ | Not Dead HALIFAX (& —- Arthur Funt believes ino giving from his heart at Christmas. For almost 200 years, Christ- mas trees have causedithe Pol- ish-born coal) dealer to make business almost a sideline during the Yuletide season while he concentrates on his awn, unique brand of eharity Since bombs rained on Britain during the days of 1940, Mr Junt bas bought Yuletide treee with profits trom his small business Co. Fach yerr, people and organt- 4 vations are invited to call and wek for a tree What they ds uy to them. , "Toaend the tree and aecept a “donation,” Mr Fut says. “ is a poor family and they can't pay me, well, that's ehurity, too Bometimes To pet 50 cents for a tree sometinies $2 ar $30 Wis annual supply of trees: -- . dhe sometines buys so to distri. ,. pute Usually cast between &7b, woe ee hid $100 Mr Bunt has no iden of the added cost of deliverles inohis company track oor the optands made to hold the. trees, During the Becond World War, donathons for (he tree. went ta the Queens Canadian Rund for the reddefoooft aly raid vietimies. Mastly. the donitlons have been piven to the Junior Red Cronus and dts Crippled Children's und Bome years the dengthons went to the senior Hed Crass und the G@ulvation Arniy Last vour, $350 wos plvey to ald TWungurdan refugees. “bop ou veteran fron the Wiest World War.” Mr. Fant guys, TO benefited a jot from the Wea Cras” oo rt ne e yaatig 4 each October from his ranch to the stock sale here. “Tt’s our annual picnic,” he said. ; This year son Willie, 13, and daughter Diane, 12, rode herd with him. Mrs. Phillips. with 18- months-old Robbie beside. her, jounced along behind/in a horse- drawn wagon with hedrolls and the “makings” for® pancakes, mulligan stew and coffee. These rations were augmented by moosemeat steaks at ranches along the way. The drive slogged along at-a 10-mile-a-day pace. It — skirted lakes, forded creeks and rivers, ambled through jackpine forests and bunch grass prairie. “The sale itself was the rough- est part of the trip,” said Pan, who sold 41 grass-fed Herefords, the “increase” from his herd ‘of 200. - . ‘Might as well have given 'em inghouse buyers were no longer /eager for grass-fed cattle. They ‘wanted “finished” beef—grain- ifed cattle which are scarce on B.C. ranches although common ion the Prairies. | SPORTSMAN’S PARADISE Life in Pan’s hinterland isn’t all cattle-raising. There is hunt- ing for grouse, duck, deer, geese, moose, mountain goat and bear; and fishing for rainbow trout. In July there is the three-day Anahim Lake Stampede with | cowboys from the Chilcotin, the i\Nazko, the Klukus and the ee tee es country. Pan sells hot dogs and dancing lasts until i breakfast. “We put up with a few incon- 'veniences such as getting Christ- ‘mas mail about June,” he sald, “But I’m doing what I like do- ing. What better Ife is there?” There were a few frontier splrits besides Pan at the stack sale, There was Bert (Batnunl) Smith, 59, who trailed his cattle in 130 miles from Batnuni Lake in the Blackwater district north of here. Bert’s father, a phy- sielan in London, Ont. in. the 1800s, had been a friend of Bir Willfam Osler, And a youngster, John Bragg, 26, who arrived in) Canada in 1948 with $20 from Dartmouth, South Devon, England. “In still broke but I’ve got a wife, a 640-acre ranch, 20 shee) and seven hereford enttle,” he said. “And I'm my own boss." ISOLATED RANCH lensed) from the B.C. govern: ment--is near Pelean Lake, 105 miles west of Quesnel, his post offices, Mis nearest neighbor ds 23 niles away, But herg, as jn most of the Curiboo, it is the lumber and not the cattle industry that now 1s predominant, Gold minkng long since has had its heyday we thouph some of the ald wold rush spirit that started the country st) Vagers, Quesnel, at the confluence of the Quesnel and Fraser rivers, is one of the oldest settiements tn ntenior B.C. Simon Fraser and Alexander Mnekenale traded with the Indians here VA years apa, Ten yeurs opo it was a sleapy village ot $00. ‘Today with the jlorest Industry tapping yew wealth dno surrounding — sprdce pnd (ry, i, isa town of 4,600, In O46 value of construction wat wHAOO, i 1NhG It wos $3,650,000, Its JO66 payroll was $6,600,000 peut, 400,000 Jn 1046, threaded mountain passes and- away.” he said. 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