An entertaining, fast-paced look at early ranching in British Columbia.Frontier historian Ken Mather is known for his fascinating, in-depth profiles of the men and women who established a distinctive ranching culture in Western Canada over a hundred years ago. Now, in this concise collection of stories-based on Mather's column in the Vernon Morning Star-readers will meet even more colourful characters, gain insightful tidbits on cowboy culture, and read about little-known cattle drives that stagger the imagination. Ranch Tales highlights the achievements, hardships, and exploits of Newman "King of the Range" Squires, "lady rancher" Elizabeth Greenbow, cow boss Joe Coutlee, the gold-seeking Jeffries brothers who came all the way from Alabama, and many more. This delightful book is a perfect companion to Mather's other ranching histories and will appeal to anyone interested in the early days of the western frontier.

Winner (second prize), 2019 British Columbia Lieutenant Governor's Medal for Historical WritingA revealing history of the ancient trail that served as a major transportation route between Washington and British Columbia and shaped the cultural and economic ties between the two jurisdictions.Trails are the most enduring memorials of human occupation. Long before stone monuments were created, pathways throughout the world were being worn into hardness by human feet. Travellers along the stretch of Highway 97 from Brewster, Washington, to Kamloops, BC, may not know that they are travelling a route as old as humankind's presence in the region. In fact, this north-south valley, a natural corridor linking the two major river systems that drain the Interior Plateau, has served as transportation route for tens of thousands of years.Trail North traces the origins of this iconic trail among the Indigenous people of the Interior Plateau and its uses by the three different fur trading companies, before turning its focus on the period of 1858 to 1868, when the trail was used by miners, packers, and cattlemen as the major entry point into British Columbia from Washington Territory. The historical use of the trail in both jurisdictions is a fascinating episode in the history of the Pacific Northwest.

Bronc Busters and Hay Sloops tells the story of ranching in the West from the beginning of the Great War until 1960. Cowboy soldiers, bronc busters, First Nations, upper-crust Englishmen and the strong, capable women of ranching country . . . theirs are the stories told in this book. Some of these characters are larger than life, such as: Joe Coutlee, cow boss of the Douglas Lake Ranch, whose booming voice gave him the nickname "Roaring Bill" Grover Hance, who roped one of his men and tied him to a tree until he sobered up Florence "Bunch" Trudeau, whose pet moose got a little too big for comfort Ollie Matheson, one of the only women to ride in the Williams Lake Stampede's death-defying Mountain Race Anne Paxton, who tended cattle, guided big-game hunters, ran pack horses and a ranch; Bill Arnold, who could ride "anything that wore hide." Ken takes readers inside sprawling ranches, which were self-contained communities in themselves, and small family-run homesteads scratched out of the wilderness. Like his first book on ranching history, Buckaroos and Mudpups, this is an engaging look at fascinating times and the people who made them so.