BCAA Travel Blog

Even though this is an aboriginal tourism trip and we are now deep in aboriginal territory, most everyone in our group has suddenly begun wearing cowboy hats. This morning, John Pierro gave a black one to Dannielle; Racelle is wearing a white one, which sets off her black hair; Leonard is sporting a straw model that looks about 10 years old, though he claims he bought it last month; and now young Amy had donned one too, transforming herself into a Chinese cowgirl. Maybe this mania has been inspired by the fact we are staying at Hat Creek Ranch. Whatever the cause, the Stetsons suit the surroundings as we explore the grounds and climb aboard the ranch’s beautifully restored BC Express stagecoach.

Stagecoaches were a primary mode of transportation in the ranch’s early years. In fact, several years after Donald McLean’s death, Hat Creek Ranch was purchased by Steven Tingley, a famous stagecoach driver known as the “Whip of the Cariboo,” who became the owner of the BC Express Company, the largest transportation company in the province. Tingley established the Hat Creek Hotel as one of the best stopping houses along the Cariboo Wagon Road and added a west wing with a formal dining room, kitchen and six additional sleeping rooms upstairs, as well as two large barns to house draft horses, mules and stagecoach teams.

The 400-mile road, which ran from Yale to the gold fields in Barkerville through treacherous terrain, was built by pick, axe and shovel between 1862 and 1865 at a cost of $1,500,000. During construction, supplies needed to be transported into the road camps for the crews. A group of entrepreneurs, hoping to make a fast profit, purchased 23 Bactrian camels from the U.S. Army to be used as pack animals. Camels could carry twice the load and travel twice the distance that a mule could in one day. However, the plan was a complete disaster. The rocky paths soon tore up the camels’ feet, which were accustomed to soft desert sands. As well, their strong smell frequently caused stampedes among the regular pack animals along the trail. The camels were all eventually turned loose into the wild. The last one reportedly died in 1905.

In 1910, Tingley retired and sold the Hat Creek property to Vancouver businessman Charles Doering, who operated the house as a hotel until 1916, when motorized transport had become popular and travellers didn’t need to stop as often along the way. Today, the pioneer hotel has been preserved to resemble the way it would have looked at the turn of the century, with furnished bedrooms, a saloon, a sitting room, and a dining area featuring a gold-trimmed China set that once belonged to McLean’s daughter-in-law. The large kitchen is illuminated by an original Thomas Edison bamboo-filament light bulb that our guide claims has burned for 73 years without replacing. The meals served at the hotel usually included apple pie, which was made using apples from the still-functioning orchard out back.

McLean’s original log cabin still stands as well, its interior decorated with several archival photos, including images of his three mixed-blood sons (Allen, Charley and Archie) from his marriage to Sophia. Fourteen years after McLean’s death, this trio, along with a friend named Alex Ware, went on a wild rampage, gunning down police constable Johnny Ussher and a settler who refused to give them food, before finally being cornered and captured near Douglas Lake. The three outlaws were tried, convicted and hung for murder in 1881, earning 16-year-old Archie the dubious distinction of being the youngest person ever executed in B.C..

Interestingly, George McLean, a son of one of the “Wild McLean Boys” was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal in 1917 for an extraordinary feat of valour at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Armed with a dozen bombs, private McLean killed 19 Germans and captured 14, before being severely wounded himself. Another of Donald McLean’s many descendants is Mel Rothenburger, a former mayor of Kamloops, who wrote a book about the McLean Gang, entitled We’ve Killed Johnny Ussher, and another about the events that led to his grandfather’s death, entitled, The Chilcotin War.

The Chilcotin War was the name given to an uprising by the Chilcotin (Tsilhqot’in) people in April 1864. The conflict was sparked by a road-building project led by a land speculator who threatened to bring smallpox to the area. The tribe, which was already ravaged by the disease, reacted in anger. A war party organized by a chief named Klatsassin massacred the road-building crew and several other settlers. Armed expeditions were sent out in response. The possees failed to capture Klatsassin, but during one skirmish, Donald McLean was shot and killed, reputedly by Klatsassin himself. Some would suggest McLean had it coming. Known for his brutality when he worked as a factor for Hudson’s Bay at Fort Kamloops, McLean proudly claimed “19 Indian kills.”

Klatsassin and several other rebellious Tsilhqot’in warriors were later persuaded to surrender on a promise of an amnesty, but when they came in to discuss terms of a truce they were arrested. Klatsassin was tried and hanged in Quesnel, along with his 17-year-old son and five other members of the war party. The chief’s last words before he was executed were “We meant war not murder.” To this day mystery persists as to his true identity. The word Klatsassin in Tsilhqot’in translates as “We do not know his name.”

This little known, but fascinating piece of frontier history is still very much alive among the Tsilhquot’in, who regard Klatsassin’s resistance to the colonists as a rallying point in their long struggle to protect their territory. In 1993, the government of British Columbia conducted an inquiry into the 1864 uprising, which resulted in an apology by the Attorney General for the hangings of the Tsilhqot’in chiefs and provided funding for the archaeological excavation of their graves to ensure a proper burial. This apology and the 1999 dedication of a memorial plaque at the site of the hangings on their anniversary date, led to the creation of an annual Klatsassin Memorial Day, an October 26 holiday that rotates annually among the Tsilhqot’in communities. A B.C. mountain was also named after Klatsassin, an honour that he now shares with the man with whom his bloody legacy is so closely linked–Donald McLean.

(To be continued …)

Photo Credits:

#1: hatcreekranch.com

#2: #3: Kerry Banks

#4: canadianmysteries.ca

Filed under: Writing from the road