Where have all the cowboys gone?

Danielle Egan | Image: Nik West | Published: July 01, 2008

“This could be bloody. How’s your stomach?” asks Mike Rose, ranch manager of Quilchena Cattle Co. Ltd., as we approach the red bull corseted by a steel cage and three cowboys in fringed chaps, smeared with blood. Cow boss Miles Kingdon clamps a wrench-like device around the bull’s testicles and muscles down on them while the other cowboys steady the squirming 270-kilogram yearling that somehow managed to avoid the typical one-month-old castration. With the placement of his testicles on a fence stump, alongside two others, the Hereford-Angus cross is now officially a steer. After spending this summer fattening up on bluebunch wheat grass, he’ll fetch a higher price at auction come fall since feedlots prefer docile cows.

This gory scene aptly depicts the current state of B.C.’s cattle ranching industry. The high Canadian dollar and skyrocketing fuel, fertilizer, corn and grain costs have B.C. cowboys metaphorically by the balls. Ranching has always been a tough business, but with last fall’s prices for feeder steers (industry speak for beef cattle between 135 and 450 kilograms) nosediving to as low as 71 cents per pound while expenses go through the barn roof, the already endangered B.C. cowboy is now in jeopardy of extinction.

Since Rose’s great-grandfather Joseph Guichon started ranching these Nicola Valley grasslands near Merritt in 1882, the family has managed to tough it through many industry slumps – from the Great Depression to the recent two-year export drought, when mad cow disease (BSE) closed the U.S. border on Canadian cattle. While the negative publicity hasn’t curbed consumer demand for beef in North America, the cattle producers’ model is based on a 65- to 75-cent dollar, and Canadian ranchers have been hit hard, particularly the small under-100-head outfits that make up the significant majority of Canada’s more than 87,000 cattle ranches.

“Last fall the price for steers was the same as it was in 1965. On today’s buck, that should be worth $1.85 per pound and you might have enough left over for a new truck and saddle,” says Rose, 49. “Now ranchers are lucky if they can pay off their debts come fall auction, and most are already working full-time jobs off-ranch.” Besides skyrocketing fuel and grain prices, ranchers are being squeezed by costly new BSE-related slaughterhouse and packing-plant regulations, which are less stringent south of the border. Even the U.S.-owned agri-giants are smarting from their own recent BSE incidents, along with

decreased exports, labour shortages and tainted-meat recalls.

As a result of these widespread industry woes, an increasing number of B.C. cowboys are hanging up the chaps. The province’s herd size dipped from 805,000 in July 2004 to 661,000 by July 2007, while the number of B.C. ranches dropped from 7,590 operations in 1995 to 5,705 by the start of 2008. B.C. has a proud heritage of cattle ranching – dating back to the 1860s when gold-rush prospectors discovered that these arid, grasslands-rich regions east of the Fraser River were ideal for cattle production – and hosted the earliest cattle drives in Canadian history. Today, third- and fourth-generation ranchers are increasingly forced to sell their herds and land to wannabe cowboys from the U.S., Asia and northern Europe.

Joseph Guichon was 17 when he came to B.C. from Chambéry in the Savoy region of France – one of more than 30,000 prospectors who streamed into the province during the gold rush. “His three brothers had already left France for the California gold rush,” recalls his grandson, 79-year-old Guy Rose – Mike’s father – as we chat over coffee in the cafeteria adjacent to Quilchena’s golf course (one of several modern-day attractions at the ranch, which also include a hotel and housing subdivision). “Young Joe was getting letters from his brothers about the gold rush in B.C. and decided to run away. He got on the boat from Liverpool and met his brothers in Barkerville. Pretty adventurous. He didn’t speak a word of English.

“Up in Barkerville, it was the same story,” continues the elder Rose, “everyone digging holes and only a couple of guys making money. But the brothers saw that eggs were selling for a dollar apiece, so they started packing food from Yale to Barkerville, working for a man called Cataline. They had a good time and made some money.” Post-gold rush, they came to the Nicola Valley to look after a herd of horses. “We don’t have to feed our horses here – can leave them out all winter, just put them up in the hills and they do fine,” he says. “So they said, ‘Wow, great country,’ and got a homestead at Mamit Lake.”

One of the brothers went back to France, while Joe and the other brother married two sisters from Victoria. When they started having kids, the families wanted to be closer to civilization. “Douglas Lake Cattle Company was being formed in the 1880s by some bankers who planned to sell meat to the railway contractors,” says Rose. “They bought my grandfather’s place and with the money he bought land down here.” By 1890 Joseph had 2,000 cattle; he introduced Hereford cows to the region and continued expanding the ranch holdings. He was also in the posse that snared infamous American train robber Billy Miner in 1906, who was imprisoned in a shed behind the hotel.

Rose’s mom was born on the ranch, but Rose actually grew up in Kitsilano, the son of a Vancouver police officer originally from Prince Edward Island. They visited the ranch on holidays, and by the time he was attending Vancouver College in Shaughnessy he visited every chance he got. “In high school, every Friday I was on the train at 7:30. I just loved it here,” he says. As soon as he graduated from UBC in 1954 with a degree in agriculture, Rose returned to Quilchena. During a European break, he picked up a “souvenir” in Germany, in the form of his wife, Hilde, and by 1957 they were ready to raise a family. Rose and his cousin Gerard Guichon divided up the ranchlands; the Guichon Ranch is now run by Guichon’s daughter Judy.