Barry Sale
Haphazard History
One of the first European settlers in the Cariboo area was Herman Otto Bowe, who preferred, throughout his life to be called Bill or William. He was born in the Holstein region of Germany near the city of Hamburg in 1834 to a liquor distiller, John Bowe and his wife Elsbe. Bowe left his home as a young man to seek his fortune in the California goldfields. He worked there without much success, and when that gold rush petered out, he, like many others, headed north toward Canada.
The year 1858 found him working the Fraser River bars in search of the elusive metal. By the spring of 1859, he and a small group of prospectors were working Cardis Bar and the mouth of Cardis Creek on the Fraser River, some 17 miles north of Dog Creek. Bowe noticed the huge expanse of grasslands and prairies to the east of the river, but the search for gold was his primary objective.
He was actually quite successful in that quest, working his way eastward, and being one of the first to find gold in the Horsefly area. One source says that a party of men, led by H.O. Bowe, made a discovery of gold about 12 miles up from the mouth of the Horsefly River in April of 1859. This was a month or so prior to the gold strike on that river by Peter Dunlevy and his group, which is largely credited as the beginning of the great Cariboo Gold Rush.
Once he had found enough gold to ensure a comfortable living, Bowe, unlike others who were overtaken by “gold fever,” decided to invest in land and to go into business for himself. Returning from the eastern goldfields in 1860, he established a temporary trading post, saloon and roadhouse beside the river trail just to the north of Cardis Bar.
The river trail was one of the two major routes to the goldfields. It came up alongside the Fraser River from Lillooet to Canoe Creek, then to Dog Creek, through the Alkali Lake valley and over to Springhouse prairie. There the trail separated, one branch going east to Chimney Creek and over the ridge to 150 Mile House and joining there with the old goldfields trail, while the other branch led north to Williams Lake, where it joined with the Hudson’s Bay Company fur brigade trail to Fort Alexandria.
Bowe was quick to recognize the advantages of catering to the flood of gold seekers streaming up the river trail and heading for the Cariboo Mountains. In 1861, he pre-empted 360 acres of rich farming grassland at the head of Alkali Lake. This scenic valley some 30 miles southeast was sometimes referred to by the early travellers as the Valley of the Waving Bunchgrass. Bowe himself called it Paradise Valley, and was so taken with the area that he decided to settle there permanently. He joined in a partnership with John Koster, and the two of them would work together for several years.
In the valley, they built a roadhouse with some small outbuildings. Word soon spread about this stopping house, which served good meals and had clean, comfortable lodgings for the time, not to mention a well-stocked saloon. Packers and travellers described it as an exceptional stopping place with the lush pastures for the animals.
On a hill overlooking this roadhouse was a white patch of Alkali soil. This white marker could be seen by approaching travellers from far down the valley, and the roadhouse was commonly referred to as “the place near the lake with the patch of Alkali on the hillside.” Gradually, this description became shortened, and people began referring to the area as Alkali Valley and the lake there as Alkali Lake, even though its waters were fresh and potable. Naturally, Bowe’s stopping house became known as Alkali Lake House.
At about this time, Bowe and Koster both married local First Nations women, two sisters who were daughters of the chief of the Esk’etemc Band of Secwépemc people. Bowe’s wife was Quilinick Pasho, known by her English name as Caroline Belleau. Together, they had four children: Charlotte (Lottie, 1862), Henry (1864), John (1869) and Emma (1872).
In her memoir about the Alkali Lake Ranch, Paddy (Wynn Johnson) Cripps mentions two other daughters, Annie and Julia, but I could not find any other mention of them.
In 1862, Bowe got into the ranching business in a rather unexpected way. Three men arrived in the valley with a herd of longhorn cattle bound for the towns of the goldfields. The cattle had been driven up all the way from Oregon, and were exhausted after their arduous journey.
Clearly, they were unable to continue on with the difficult 90 or 100 miles remaining. Bowe bought the entire herd for a bargain price of $20 a head. After a year, the animals had not only survived, they had flourished on the nutritious natural bunch grass in the valley. Some were kept on, but the rest were sold in Barkerville for $100 a head.
That was the beginning of the Alkali Lake Ranch, believed to be the first cattle ranch in the province and destined to become one of the largest in B.C.
The stopping house business lasted only a few years since, upon the competition of the Cariboo Wagon Road, the river trail route was little used. The ranch, however, prospered. Bowe and Koster increased their land holdings, planted hay and grains, added several new buildings, including a large barn and a big ranch house, and went into stock production in a big way. They brought another 200 heads of longhorns along with 80 broodmares and five stallions up from Oregon on another memorable three-month trip, and began their own breeding program.
Bowe, despite being a short, heavy-set man, was a good horseman. He invested heavily in developing and training racehorses.
At the time, there was a very active racing circuit in the Cariboo, with race tracks at Antler City, Quesnel, Williams Lake, Lac La Hache, Clinton, Ashcroft, Kamloops, and extending well down into the United States. The Alkali Lake Ranch had its own horse barns, training facilities and race track. It hosted regular race events which were well-attended, exciting, and considered to be annual “must attend” social occasions.
The ranch itself was the centre of social activities for miles in all directions. At Christmas time, a huge Yuletide party which lasted a whole week took place.
People came from all around for the feasting, the merrymaking, and the fellowship. When Bowe’s youngest (and favourite) daughter, Emma, was married, he had a grand piano shipped up to the ranch by freight wagon from New Westminster for the reception and dance.
The party lasted several days. That same piano can be seen today in our local Museum of the Cariboo-Chilcotin.
In 1901, Bowe turned over the ranch to his son John and moved into retirement at New Westminster. He passed away there in 1912, at the age of 78. He had 28 grandchildren, many of whom had large families of their own.
Today, a good number of people in the Williams Lake area can trace their ancestry back to this industrious and determined pioneer who arrived as a gold prospector, but who saw the potential in ranching and made his life here.
In writing this column, I used the memoir of Paddy Cripps, and the writings of Irene Stangoe and Branwen Patenaude. Pictures are reprints from the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and the B.C. Provincial Archives.
