HUMAN USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE SOUTH OKANAGAN AND LOWER SIMILKAMEEN VALLEYS

Richard J. Cannings and Eva Durance

HISTORICAL (NON-NATIVE LAND USE)

NINETEENTH CENTURY

THE FUR TRADE

The first non-native person to see the Okanagan Valley is believed to be David Stuart who travelled down the Okanagan River in 1811 for the Pacific Fur Company (The Okanagan Bulletin Area, p. 7). The fur trade was the first non-native use of the subject area chiefly as part of Hudson Bay Company routes from the northern part of the British Columbia Interior to the coast.

The most important of these routes was developed in the 1820's from Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River in present-day Washington State upriver to Fort Okanagan at the junction of the Columbia and Okanagan River, then by pack train on the Brigade Trail up the Okanagan Valley and west to Fort Kamloops. While some furs were obtained from the southern bands, fur-bearing animals were never plentiful in this area and the Company frequently traded with these Okanagans for guiding, horses, or other supplies.

There were favourite encampments along the Trail, but no settlement.

In 1846, after the Oregon Treaty defined the international border, the Company moved its trade route into Canada, travelling from Fort Kamloops to Fort Langley through the Similkameen Valley. Relations with the Okanagan people was generally amicable and the goods available from the whites were welcomed, especially firearms, iron utensils and steel tools, and tobacco. White economy in this period, trapping, was strictly for export and as such did not enrich the local area; in fact, excessive exploitation of wildlife, particularly in the northern part of the Valley, and salmon, in the southern area, had led to serious,depletion of their main food sources and hardship for the Okanagans by the late 1820's (Carstens).

In 1858, Governor James Douglas proclaimed colonial government on the mainland, but not until the early 1860's was any civil authority set up in the Interior. In this period, the Dewdney Trail was established from Fort Hope to Fort Steele via the Richter Pass, a development that encouraged the expansion of cattle ranching in the Okanagan.

RANCHING

Ranching in the Okanagan Valley began seriously in the 1860's. From 1861to 1864, an estimated 14,000 head of cattle, horses, and sheep were brought in from Oregon to graze on the native upland grasses. In the Okanagan and Lower Similkameen, there are an estimated 1.3 million acres of land capable of being used for grazing with about 75,000 acres in grasslands and the rest in forested rangelands. (The Okanagan Bulletin Area 1973).

Cereal and feed grains and hay were grown on bottomlands. The horses and cattle were raised for the local market and for miners in the Cariboo goldrush fields. They were also trailed over the Cascades along the Dewdney Trail to the coast from the early 1880's until 1915 when the Kettle Valley Railway was built to Penticton (Cox 1987).

The mid to late 19th century was also the era of the large cattle ranches, the Haynes', Ellis, Barcello, and others including Okanagan native people. Judge Haynes in 1885 had about 21,000 acres and 1400 breeding stock in the Osoyoos area; this land and stock was bought by Tom Ellis in that year. Ellis acquired about 30,000 acres and 3750 head of cattle including the Haynes ranch. Val Haynes, the son, set up the Garrison Ranch west of Osoyoos in 1906 with range on Kruger Mountain, and later ran the Vaseux Lake Ranch as well.

Other large ranching operations, including some owned by Okanagan families, were begun in the Lower Similkameen Valley. The Barcello spread was one of these, in Cawston. By 1890, the bovine population of the Okanagan was estimated at 26,000, most in the southern part; however, the non-native human population was still only at about 400 (Charting a Course 1993).

FORESTRY

Forestry in the early years of settlement was for local consumption with small, portable, sawmills used to produce lumber, poles, and posts. It was not until the mid years of the twentieth century, with improved transportation, heavier logging equipment, and access to higher-elevation forests that forestry became an important economic activity in the study area.

MINING

Mining in the study area has never been a large part of the economy. It has historical importance in the development of the area, however, chiefly because of the movement of miners through the area towards the Cariboo and the part they played in early settlement. The Fairview mine above Oliver, for example, supported over 200 families in the town of that name near the site for about 20 years at the turn of the century. Other minesites of some importance that began in the 1890's were in the Camp McInney area east of Oliver and the Horn Silver mine southeast of Cawston in the Lower Similkameen.