Echo Valley Ranch is located in the heart of the Cariboo region, an area rich with historical significance. From the earliest native inhabitants who lived here for thousands of years, to the gamblers and fortune-seekers that passed through on their way to the gold rushes, and to the hardworking dry farmers who struggled for years to glean scant harvests from the unyielding soil, all have left their mark. Many remnants of the past still linger here, serving as quiet reminders of days that, while gone, have not been forgotten.

The story of our area begins long before recorded history. Some time between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago, groups of Siberian natives made their way across the Alaskan land bridge, trailing the herds of caribou, deer, and elk into our continent. Moving southward, between the massive sheets of ice that covered much of Canada at the time, they spread out through the southern portions of North America. However, as the millennia passed and the Ice Ages came to an end, numerous tribes began to follow the retreating glaciers northward. By 8,000 years ago, natives had expanded up the West Coast into British Columbia, and following the rivers, had penetrated into the mountainous interior of the province. The largest of these rivers was the Fraser, and although it didn't provide an easy route into the interior, it was a river bountiful with salmon-a main staple of the native's diet. Thus it was that the majority of the interior-bound natives traveled up through the rugged Fraser canyon, hunting and fishing as they trekked northward. Groups often settled-temporarily--along the banks of the Fraser when they became tired of traveling or when they discovered an area with particularly abundant game and fish. One large semi-nomadic tribe, calling themselves the Shuswap, migrated northwards along the river to the point where the Thompson River flows into it from the East. This prevented them from following the Fraser any longer. Turning eastward, they made their way into the southern interior of the province where they fragmented into numerous smaller groups. Eventually, some of the Shuswap crossed the Thompson and continued their exploration of the Fraser Canyon. One of the groups settled near a large sand bar in the river. Thousands of years later, when the area became flooded with Caucasian gold miners, the native village would earn the name "High Bar" from that nearby sand bar.

By the early 1800's, few European frontiersmen had ventured very far into the British Columbia interior. (The city of Victoria had been established on Vancouver Island, and the town of New Westminster-the first permanent outpost on the province's mainland-was under construction near the mouth of the Fraser River.) That all changed in 1857, when a few enterprising miners found bright flakes of gold in their sluices and pans along the sand bars where the Thompson River flows into the Fraser. Within a year, thousands of miners and fortune-seekers had arrived in BC and had journeyed up the Fraser, eager for a piece of the marvelous, but elusive riches that the river promised. Claims were staked for hundreds of kilometers along the river's banks and on it's sandbars, and the name "Fraser" became world-renowned virtually over night. But despite its sudden reputation of a river brimming with gold, only a few people-those who arrived early or who were exceptionally lucky-ever managed to become rich quickly. Most only made enough to pay for their supplies, and they often lost what fortunes they had by gambling with their fellow gold miners. By 1860, the excitement of the Fraser River Goldrush had dwindled significantly. But a few of the more ambitious prospectors looked northward. The gold flakes and nuggets in the Fraser had been washed down river from somewhere. Find that source, they reasoned, and they'd find the mother lode.

In 1861, a young Cornish sailor named Billy Barker managed to find that source. Seven hundred and forty-eight kilometers northeast of New Westminster, in a narrow, forested valley, he struck it rich. In a mad rush for the British Columbia interior, all the fortune-seekers and prospectors from the previous gold rush returned-and in greater force. More then 20,000 people passed through Victoria on their way to the gold fields during the next year. A crude shantytown was soon established in the valley where Billy Barker first discovered the mother lode: Barkerville became a flourishing community in a short time. During the height of its prosperity, the town's size rivaled that of Victoria's, with over six thousand permanent residents and fourteen thousand miners! To support this massive population, numerous self-sufficient roadhouses were instituted at various points along the route to the gold fields. Ranches sprung up around these roadhouses and soon a small but profitable cattle industry emerged to feed the miners in British Columbia. The Barkerville gold rush lasted longer then its predecessor; for six years fortunes were won and lost in the Cariboo country. And then gradually, as the precious metal was slowly depleted, the gold rush came to its conclusion…and Barkerville became a ghost town.

With the decline of the gold rushes, and the shrinking European and North American activity along the Fraser, a large influx of Chinese miners and laborers appeared in BC. Cultural and racial prejudices had run strongly amongst the Caucasian miners during the outbreak of the gold rushes, and so the Chinese had been discouraged from entering the province. Nevertheless, a sizable oriental population did manage to accumulate around the Barkerville area, and as the main supply of gold in the Fraser was depleted and the miners moved on, fortune-seekers began to arrive from China in droves. Given the smaller amount of gold remaining in the Cariboo, the Chinese began to utilize different mining methods than their predecessors: instead of panning for gold, they would "wash" enormous amounts of gravel per day by bringing water down long "flumes" to their claim sites. Basically small aqueducts, these flumes would carry water dozens of miles down hill into the arid Fraser environment where it could be used for the mining operations. The Chinese continued to prospect along the river for several decades, before eventually settling on the flat bench lands there around the turn of the century. They proceeded to farm throughout the Cariboo region until around 1905, when the British Columbia government opened the province to homesteading. Tragically, the majority of the Chinese farmers were forced from their land with the arrival of English-speaking settlers and with the construction of the Cariboo Highway. Today, very few descendants of those original immigrants still remain in BC.

When the Barkerville gold rush was at its height, the British Columbia government decided to implement one of the most ambitious engineering projects of that century: they would build the Great North Road, later to become known as the Cariboo Highway. Over a two year period, construction crews built a single-lane wagon road extending from Yale, on the Fraser River, to the head of the Barkerville Valley-650 km of twisting, rutted road, much of it blasted from the solid rock walls of the Fraser Canyon. Nevertheless, the Highway, when completed, provided the first real access to the gold fields-and to the Cariboo, the heart of the provincial interior.

With the advent of the Cariboo Highway, the population of BC's interior began to grow at a remarkable rate. Indeed, in 1886 when the provincial government announced its decision to give away free land to homesteaders, Canada's last real land rush began, with thousands of wagons winding their way up the Highway to the Interior Plateau and beyond. Due to the relatively intense traffic on the Highway's dirt surface during the wet springs, however, it would often-for months at a time--become a nearly impassible morass of mud and ruts. Thus people often sought less traveled routes into the Cariboo. One of these involved following the Fraser further north than the Cariboo Highway, crossing the river above High Bar, and then making one's way northward through an area named Big Bar (another region which acquired its name from a sand bar). Between 1910 and 1920, when the traffic through this route was its heaviest, two brothers with the last name of Rhinehart, established a shipping company in the heart of Big Bar. Their plan was to use their teams of draft horses to disperse goods coming across the river amongst the homesteaders in the Big Bar area. Unfortunately, their company lasted only a couple of years-by that time the Cariboo Highway had been expanded and repaired sufficiently to allow larger quantities of traffic, and the smaller alternate routes became less traveled.

While the Rhinehart Shipping Company did not last for more than a handful of years, the hardy homesteaders of the Big Bar area persevered substantially longer. A great number of them were drawn from the prairie provinces of Canada by the promise of free land. Used to contending with little or no irrigation on the prairies, they hoped to use their ideas of dry farming to good effect in the semi-arid interior of BC. Between 1905 and 1928, more than one hundred homesteads were established in the Big Bar area alone, and although their harvests fluctuated with the weather, by and large they were successful. As with any such a sizable community, there were children to be educated. And given the slow speed of transportation of the day, numerous schools were required to serve each individual area. Over forty, one-room schools have operated in the Big Bar region during the 20th century. Sadly, with the start of the depression in 1929 and the subsequent droughts which plagued the continent during the next decade, the majority of the dry farms couldn't persist and all but a handful of families were forced to leave.

With the arrival of modern irrigation methods, farming in the Cariboo and Big Bar areas was revived. Although such a large population has never existed here since, Big Bar is once again a thriving community. The High Bar still remains to this day, and the region where the Shuswap once settled is now the High Bar Native Reservation. The frail, wooden planks from the original Chinese flumes continue to endure, serving as a continual reminder of the different cultures that have touched this area. The Cariboo Highway runs just east of Big Bar as Highway 97, and it still serves as the lifeline of industry in BC. As one drives through this area, one can see large, overgrown meadows--quiet testimony of the dry farms that once struggled here. And the remains of the Rhinehart Shipping Company still survive as well: the barn, where they once stabled their draft horses, continues to stand. And one last one-room school prevails, continuing to educate the children of the families still living here.

Near the heart of the Big Bar area lies Echo Valley Ranch. From the ranch, you can take trail rides past the site of the former Rhinehart Shipping Company, and ride down their ancient, overgrown wagon road towards the Fraser. At High Bar, a recreation of a teepee village has been set up where you can enjoy traditional native dinners and spend the night in one of the six teepees. The Fraser River is also near at hand. Here, you can try your luck at gold panning-perhaps to find some small legacy of the Cariboo gold rushes! High above, running parallel to the canyon wall, you can occasionally see the weather-beaten remains of the original Chinese flumes. The Cariboo Highway, and the last one-room school, are both within easy driving distances. The memories of the past still linger on here…come and experience them.

- Researched & written by Jessie Eyer -