Four little myths and h Friday. October 26 *990 ~ North Shore News - 9 ow they grew Chilcotin County, believe it or not, isn’t really at the end of the Earth ANAHIM LAKE — A few myths about the Chileotin Country will have to go. It's too bad, you never like to see old friends or old ideas go, but the time comes when they have outlived their usefulness on this earth. #1. CHILCOTIN IS IN NOR- THERN BRITISH COLUMBIA. It isn’t, Not only that, it never was, Chilcotin is part of southern B.C. A whole broad band of forest, lake and grasslands lies be- tween it and the centre line of the province. It begins only 300 kilometres north of the American border. Neither is it distant, although that used to be true. Without breaking any speed limits you can drive from Van- couver to the southern boundary of Chilcotin at the Gang Ranch in six hours. Taking the longer way around, through Williams Lake, it is nevertheless possible to go from Vancouver to Chilcotin in a morn- ing and r.urn at night of the same viay. #2, YOU NEED A FOUR WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLE TO NEGOTIATE THE MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY BETWEEN ANAHIM LAKE AND BELLA COOLA. This story originated with somebody who had a genius for selling four wheel drive vehicles, the mast overrated, oversold, over-priced and under-used vehi- cles ever turned out by the auto industry. The first car to cross the moun- tains on the new road built postwar between Anahim Like and the Bella Coola Valley was a decrepit Model A Ford, driven by Steve Dorsey who was then a boy on his father’s raneh at Anahim Lake. He made the trip the day before the official opening. The highway has been negotia- ble to Model A Fords and all other kinds of passenger cars ever since. It is a steep. slow, twisting mountain road and not negotiable for trailers but the only time four wheel drive is advisable is during snow and freezing rains, the same periods when four wheel drives are useful on Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver, #3. THE GANG RANCH IS THE BIGGEST IN THE WORLD. This is just as wrong as the equally popular saying about the Douglas Lake Ranch in the Mer- ritt country. There are ranches in Northern Australia and in Patagonia so Paul St. Pierre PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES large you could poke three or four Gang Ranches into them and lose them. Fact is, almost aJl ranches up here are far smaller than either you or their owners betieve. “Yep,” says the rancher, “I own all the land as far as you can see. And as far again beyond that, I reckon.”’ He usually holds tull tle toa few score acres near his home place. leases a few hundred inore for hay cutting aod then holds grazing rights over a considerably larger part of the Crown lands, What he has is an arotrude, which often passes for ownership. In the south Okanagan, when Xavier Richter took up fand for his first cattle ranch, he was challeneed by Judge J.C. Haynes who had preceded him in that part of the dry belt. “Do vou own this fand?" said Richter. Haynes said ‘tT don't exactly own it, but I have a strong moral right to it.” #4, SHUSWAP INDIANS LIVE EAST OF THE FRASER RIVER IN WHAT IS CALLED CARIBOO, AND THE CHILCOTIN IS ENTIRELY THE PRESERVE OF THE CHILCOTIN ENDIANS. This is closer to truth today than it was in the past. In the last century, as recorded by our native anthropologist Teit, the Shuswap occupied a big trading village west of the Fraser River. He describes the location as being in che canyon of the Chilcotin and sinee there is more than one site that might be called a canyon the precise location is uncertain. It is probably at Farwell Canyon where numerous keekwilliwie holes can be found among the trees that have grown up since. The Shuswap are believed to have retreated to the other bank of the Fraser after being deci- mated by the smallpox epidemic. However they have not forgotten their former occupancy of lands this side of the Fraser and five of them have entered claims in the present Indian land claims dispute with government. In addition to the Shuswap, Carrier Indians occupied much of the western and northern regions of what we now call the Chilcotin Country. Traditionally there was suppos- ed to be intense rivalry, distrust and even hatred among the dif- ferent groups. To whatever ex‘ent this was true, there is little evi- dence of it today. 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