BUD WALTERS

Cowboy and Pioneer of Deadman's Creek

by Edward Villiers

BUD WALTERS
Cowboy and Pioneer of Deadman's Creek

by Edward Villiers
25019 - 108 Avenue,
Maple Ridge, B.C.

Copyright - December, 2004

',,'

Chapter 1
Admiral Penn broke the wax seal on the letter and frowned as he read its
contents It was from the dean of Christ Church College at Oxford
University. It read:
"Your son has joined a new religious sect called the Society of Friends and
has refused to attend church services at this college. Neither fines, nor
whippings, nor beatings have changed his sympathies with this cult and
I have no alternative except to banish him from this institution."
Admiral Penn was a respected commander of the, British fleet and a
wealthy man - wealthy enough to loan the newly crowned king, Charles
II, sixteen thousand pounds to fight the Dutch. Yet despite his wealth and
his prominent position in England his 18-year old son William had been
expelled from Oxford. The date was January, 1662.
The admiral summoned his son home then sent him to Paris for two years
to forget his folly. William returned to England two years later more
determined than ever to follow the ideals of the Society of Friends.
Oliver Cromwell had been Lord Protector of England for eleven years
following the beheading of King Charles I and had only recently died.
During his rule he granted a wide measure of religious tolerance to the
English people which the new king, Charles II, continued to allow.
An evangelical zealot named George Fox took advantage of this relaxation
of religious freedom by publicly and violently disagreeing with the
established church. He challenged lecturers in universities, interrupted
sermons in churches, and preached fervently on street corners. He shouted
and thundered that the Anglican church had become too involved in ritual,
had strayed too far from the basic beliefs of Christianity, and that the
clergy were living loose and unchristian lives.

;I,

William Penn shared Fox's beliefs. The two of them travelled England
and the Continent together preaching a religion that proclaimed there were
no superior or inferior classes of society and that every human being was
sacred regardless of race.
Both were arrested several times for disturbing the peace.
served nine months imprisonment in the Tower of London.

Penn even

On one of Fox's many appearances before a judge Fox warned the

magistrate to tremble at the word of God whereupon the judge made a joke
about quaking at this threat.
Because of the judge's quip, Fox's group became known as "Quakers."
Admiral Penn died in 1670 at the young age of 49 and William inherited
his father's riches, including the loan of 16,000 pounds due from the king
of England.
William Penn had been interested for several years in acquiring land in
British America to re-settle Quakers suffering persecution. When the king
told him that the Crown had insufficient funds to repay the debt due to his
father, young Penn petitioned for a tract of land in America as settlement.
On June 24, 1680, the king gave him a deed to a huge rectangle of land
that had been part of the New York colony. It ran west of the Delaware
River, north of Maryland, for 300 miles and at Penn's request "as far
north as plantable" - 170 miles. Penn was familiar with this territory~ a
few years earlier he had crossed the Atlantic and visited it.
Because of its beautiful fields and picturesque forests he decided to
christen his new private province "Sylvania." - meaning "a rustic
landscape abounding in groves of trees." King Charles disagreed with
the name insisting it tnust honor Penn's famous father.
So they compromised and named the place "Pennsylvania."
2

William Penn paid the Indians for their land, gave all settlers absolute
religious freedom, established a democratic form of government, and
advertised throughout Europe for persecuted protestant Christians to come
as settlers.
To Penn's Holy Experiment came Quakers, Mennonites, Lutherans,
Amish, and a wide variety of other religious groups including the Gennan
Baptist Brethren who all made the perilous voyage across the Atlantic in
little wooden ships to Delaware Bay, then up the river to Penn's Landing
at his new city called Philadelphia - the city of brotherly love.
The two-month voyage across the Atlantic was rough, disease-ridden and
dangerous. Ships were small and crowded. Food was salt-beef, bread,
and coarse meal. Horses and cattle were crowded in amongst the human
passengers and sanitary conditions were appalling. Out of one shipload
of 150 German immigrants who sailed for Pennsylvania in 1732, 100 died
before they reached the promised land.
About 1815, from amongst a group of persecuted Lutherans,
German family nained Walter.

came a

Chapter 2
A one-page family chronology by an unknown author tells us very briefly
about the arrival of the Walter family in Pennsylvania:
"John Jacob Walter and wife came from Germany in a shipload of
Lutherans who were persecuted in Germany.
They settled in Butler
County, Jefferson Township. They had eight children: Jacob, Dan, John,
Simon, Phillip, Sally, Mary Ann, and Elizabeth."
Records ofthe Summit United Presbyterian Church in Jefferson Township,
Butler County, add a little more information to the family chronology by
stating that John Jacob Walter was born in 1786 and lived until 1873. His
wife Sarah who was four years younger than him was born in 1790 and
died in 1866. A daughter, Sarah (probably the girl named "Sally'; listed in
the family chronology) was born in 1819 and died at the age of 70 in
1889. The brief church record also states that John Jacob Walter (which
the church spells "Walters") was a Veteran, but does not specify the war
he was took part in. He was not born when the Revolutionary War against
Great Britain took place between 1775 and 1783, and was too old to fight
in the American Civil War fought between 1861 and 1865. So he must
have been a veteran of the War of 1812, a two year conflict between the
United States and Great Britain that saw American forces attempting to
annex Canada by invading the Niagara frontier.
Butler County was a remote area west of the Allegheny Mountains, an area
that had not been purchased by Penn from the Indians. Consequently,
unlike eastern Pennsylvania, the Indians west of the Alleghenies were
hostile to early settlers.
In 17 50 George Washington was sent to build a fort at the junction of the
Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, thirty miles south of what is now
Butler County. It was intended to protect these newcomers. Part way
through construction Washington was driven off by the French with Indian
allies who claimed the territory themselves. The French completed the
4

outpost, named it Fort Duquesne, and the Indians continued to ravage

Pennsylvania's western frontier, burning buildings and killing settlers .
British forces returned five years later but when they were within a few
miles ofFort Duquesne they were ambushed by the French and Indians and
out of their force of 1,400 men only 450 escaped But the determined
British returned again in 17 63. This time they drove the French out for
ever along with their Indian allies led by Chief Pontiac. The British
renamed the outpost Fort Pitt after their prime minister and it protected a
log cabin settlement that grew up to become the city of Pittsburgh .
The British banned any further settlers in western Pennsylvania because of
the high cost of defending them. However within fifteen years the thirteen
British colonies defeated Britain in their war of independence,
Pennsylvania became a state in a new country called the United States of
America, and settlers were once again free to homestead west of the
Alleghenies. Many of them were veterans of the American Revolutionary
War who had left their homesteads in the east and came west in search of
virgin land and a chance to take part in the American dream. They were
followed by Scottish and German immigrants .
The first white settlers to arrive in what would be called Butler County
came in the 1790's and among them was a young Scottish family named
Ekas. In 1793, just six years after Pennsylvania attained statehood, this
young couple ventured across the Allegheny Mountains in a covered wagon
and created a homestead in the wilderness. The family record states that
the Ekas wagon was the first wagon to arrive in what is now Butler County.
In the wagon with them was their baby daughter, Elisebeth.
Ten years before they arrived a Captain Robert Orr had erected a timbered
structure called a blockhouse at the junction of the Allegheny River and
Bull Creek, about twenty miles south of the Ekas homestead. It had a
projecting upper storey with holes for gunfire, and while it did not offer
immediate protection to the Ekas family against Indian attack its presence
did provide some measure of comfort .
5

Baby Elisebeth Ekas grew up and married a frontiersman named James

Fleming and they had four children - Elizabeth, Rebecca, John, and
Thomas. Although the French had long vanished from the area, the Indians
were still committing acts of terrorism. According to the Walter family
history:
"One day some raiding Indians came to the house when Elisebeth was
alone with baby Elizabeth. She saw them coming, and was able to get out
into the woods and hide in a hollowed out log. She held her hand over the
baby's mouth to keep her from giving them away. The Indians burnt the
house down, but she saved their lives."
In 1800, seven years after their arrival the Pennsylvania Legislature
included the Ekas homestead in a new county named after a general who
fought in the Revolutionary War, Richard Butler. A few years later the
\\Talter family also arrived in Butler County.
Elizabeth Fleming- the baby girl hidden by her mother in a hollow loggrew up in Buffalo Township and married a man from a neighbouring
homestead on Bull Creek named Phillip Walter - one of the four sons of
John Jacob Walter who had emigrated from Germany. The wedding,
which united Scottish and German blood, took place on October 28, 1846.
Phillip and Elizabeth Walter moved onto a farm near the southern border
of Buffalo Township along a narrow dirt road that meandered past the
homes of many ofWalter's relatives, including seven Fleming farms and
three Ekas homesteads. A hundred and fifty years ago Buffalo Township,
with only two small hamlets - Monroeville and Sarversville - was a
closely knit community where everybody not only knew everybody else but
where many people were related.
In 1874 a detailed map of the township was drawn which identified the
location of every home in the area, including the name of its owner. The
Philip Walter homestead was shown on the east side of a main dirt road
opposite a little stream called Bull Creek that flowed south into the
6

..
Allegheny River at Tarentum.
Nearby were the homes of a dozen
Fleming families and further up the road were a cluster ofEkas farms. All
ofthese people were related to Philip Walter .

On June 21, 1860, a United States census enumerator visited the Walter
farm and added an "s" to the family name. On pages 40 and 41 of his
schedule William Denny, the census taker, wrote: "Philip Walters, age
33, occupation farmer," and "Elizabeth Walters, age 29." He recorded the
value of Walters' real estate at $3,000 and the value of the family's other
assets at $350. The couple provided the names and ages of their five
children (they would later have five more) the eldest being John Albert
who was seven .
Ten years later in the 1870 census John Albert Walters was now 17 and
listed as a farmer. A short time later the young man moved temporarily to
the town of Freeport, Pennsylvania, about ten miles away, and apprenticed
as a blacksmith. He returned to Butler County and on June 17, 1880 the
enumerator visited his home and reported that John Albert Walters was 27
years old, earned his living as a blacksmith, and was married with two
small children .
John's wife was the former Ellen Gregg who was raised just a few miles
away in Monroeville. Her occupation was described as "keeping house" .
He and Ellen reported two children to the census taker- Guy Edgar, aged
two, and a four and a half month old son who very strangely was recorded
by the enumerator as "not named."
That young "not named" boy who was born in Buffalo Township on
February 4, 1880, would later be christened Clyde Brenton. When he grew
up Clyde unofficially dropped his first two names and became known to
his friends simply as Bud-Bud Walters .

Chapter 3
On July 9, 1883, when Bud Walters was only two years old, his mother
died. A sister, Ida Bell, died a year earlier and both were buried in the St.
Paul's Lutheran cemetery in Buffalo Township near Sarverville. Bud was
too young to remember either of them. Three years after his mother's
death his dad re-married Fina McBumey, a woman who bore him four
more children, two sons and two daughters. Bud did not get along well
with his stepmother.
There are few details of Bud's boyhood other than he was born in Buffalo
township. He and his brother Guy, and his many cousins, probably
fished in Bull Creek, caught trout from the railroad bridge that crossed
Little Buffalo Creek near Munroe station, and climbed mulberry trees
every year around the beginning of August to feed on juicy ripe berries that
stained their lips and shirt fronts blue.
The nearest school to the Philip Walters farm was across a field about a
mile away near the Doyle farm. It was called the Doyle School and over
a century later the old building still stands but is now a private residence on
Doyle Road.
It is not known exactly where in Butler County Bud grew up but in later
years he said he was raised next to a big tomato farm where the tomatoes
were grown for the big Heinz ketchup plant in Pittsburgh. Every day on
his way home from school he used to pass by a glass factory and frequently
stopped in to earn a few pennies blowing bottles in a mold. He saved up
enough money to buy a .22 caliber pistol even though he wasn't yet a
teenager. All the young boys had one.
About 1898 - after Bud had left home-his father and stepmother moved
down to Tarentum, a city on the north bank of the Allegheny River located
five miles south of the county line. He and his wife returned briefly to
Butler County to run a blacksmith shop near Ekastown - not far from
where he was born - but moved back to Tarentum where John Albert
8

Walter (he dropped the "s" on his name) lived for the last 40 years of his
life. His home at 1029 Summit Street, on the northern edge of town, faced
open fields to the north and the town of Tarentum at the junction of the
beautiful Allegheny River and Bull Creek to the south.
Tarentum was founded in 1829 by an entrepreneur named Henry
Brackenridge on a canal system completed in 1828 that provided a direct
transportation route between Philadelphia to the east and Pittsburgh to the
west. The place grew in size so quickly as a mercantile center that it was
incorporated in 1842. The city eventually reached a population of 10,000
but today, despite being a bedroom community of nearby Pittsburgh, it has
shrunk to about 5, 000.
Before World War I John Walter owned a training stable for sulky race
horses at the old Tarentum Fairgrounds and for half a century his horses
raced at county fairs and race tracks all over Pennsylvania. He even took
them to race in Kentucky. The site of his training stable is now a housing
sub-division.
John's last blacksmith shop was in the west end of Tarentum at the comer
ofMill Street and West Seventh Avenue. Because a blacksmith could not
make a good living just making horse shoes and doing repair work, he also
manufactured wagons and carriages.
But the days of horse drawn vehicles were quickly nearing an end. In 1885
Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler built the world's first practical automobile
in Germany and by the end of the first world war automobiles were rapidly
replacing horse drawn carriages on the streets of Tarentum. In fact the
Tarentum town council passed a bylaw ordering horse owners to carry a
shovel with them when they came to town and clean up their horse
droppings behind them. Walter's blacksmithing trade was becoming a
sunset industry.
In 1920 John Walter was no longer listed in the census as a blacksmith but
as a pressureman who worked for a gas company. A pressureman operated
9

a pump that maintained pressure in one of the many gas transmission lines
in the area.
John Albert Walter, a staunch Republican, and a member of Tarentum's
First Methodist Church, died at home on April 8, 1940, at age 87. He was
buried in the old St. Paul's cemetery in Sarversville, Butler County, beside
a highway now known as Route 3 56.
Back on February 4, 1894, Bud Walters turned fourteen. His father and
stepmother had not yet moved to Tarentum and were still living in Butler
County. The 1890's was an era known as the "Gay Nineties" but
according to the local newspaper there wasn't much gaiety in Butler
County. The "Butler Eagle" reported that people attended to business which was prospering - went to lectures and travelling shows at the
Butler opera house, to church socials, and to night school at the Y.M.C.A.
In a bid to save money the Butler town council fired its only policeman and
no crime wave followed. It was a very quiet place. Too quiet in fact for
young Bud Walters.
His school days were over and it was time to look for a job. There were
many places to work. He could have found employment in a glass factory.
One of Butler County's glass plants cast the nation's first large telescope
lens. Or he could have got a job in a wire cable factory. Wire cable was
invented in Butler County by John A. Roehling who later built the Brooklyn
Bridge. Or Bud could have hired on in the oil industry.
Twenty-one years before Bud was born, a native of Butler County named
William Andrew Smith drilled the world's first oil well at Titusville,
Pennsylvania, some 75 miles to the north. When Bud was fourteen years
old oil derricks were a common sight in the Butler County and "torpedo
men" were always sought after for the dangerous job of carrying
nitroglycerine to new well heads. Before the Swedish chemici!il engineer
Alfred Nobel patented dynamite in 1876 nitroglycerine was used to break
up rock encountered in new well holes. The highly volatile explosive was
made by treating glycerol with a mixture of concentrated nitric and
10


sulphuric acids and packaging it in four pound cans called "spuds."

"
"

Nitroglycerine is extremely sensitive to shock and was transported to the

well heads in horse drawn buggies that used leather strap suspensions to
lessen jolting and a premature explosion Often six cans - six spuds would be carried in one wagon. At a well head a spud would be carefully
lowered down the hole to a desired depth, then a weight would be dropped
on top of it causing an underground explosion .
The people who transported this hazardous explosive were called "torpedo
men" who only worked at this dangerous occupation for a short time
because they didn't want to push their luck. As one torpedo man put it,
"I retired from that job early because I thought it would be much more
pleasant to retire in 'peace' rather in "pieces.'
There are records in the Butler County Historical Society describing
buggies being blown up while carrying nitroglycerine to the oil wells .
Bud Walters' uncle was one of those unfortunate men. In later years Bud
related,
"My uncle, one of my mother's brothers, was killed transportingnitro. His
wagon blew up and all they ever found was the toe of one shoe with his big
toe in it. The horses and harnesses were all gone and all that was left was
a big hole in the ground."
Although young Bud Walters had lots of employment opportunities in
Butler County he yearned for adventure and he set his sights outside of
Pennsylvania.
He wanted to be a cowboy.
On a spring day in 1894, at the age of fourteen, he climbed up the metal
rungs of a south bound box car and rode a series of freight trains until he
arrived in Texas.
11

Chapter 4
Bud arrived somewhere on the Canadian River in the Texas panhandle and
was hired immediately by a big ranch as a horse wrangler. A wrangler
looks after a remuda, a herd of saddle horses and pack animals used to herd
the cattle.
Every morning before daybreak he swam the shallow river, rounded up 7 5
horses, then forded them back across to the corral ready for the riders by
sun-up. That's how the fourteen-year-old boy from Pennsylvania got his
start cowboying in Texas.
When the American Civil War ended in 1865 there were 4 million cattle in
Texas, most of them running wild because the men who tended them were
away at war. When the Texans returned home their cattle were needed to
feed a hungry nation where the population was concentrated in the north
and east. To move the cattle to market they first had to be herded northward for hundreds of miles across swollen streams, amongst hostile Indian
bands, through blowing snow and under searing sun to get them to the
nearest railroad at Abilene, Wichita, and Dodge City, in Kansas. The cowboys who trailed them were considered by one author as "the American
knights on horseback who looked down on mortals who merely walked."
During a trail drive two cowboys known as pointmen rode in the lead or
point at the head of the herd. These were the most experienced riders who
directed the animals. Some distance behind them came outriders called
swing riders who watched that none of the herd wandered away, followed
in tum by the flank riders. The rear was brought up by the drag riders
who kept the laggards moving, looked after any strays, and choked on dust.
The horse wrangler was usually a boy old enough to work like a man. On
Bud Walters' first cattle drives his job was to look after the saddle horses
and the belongings that went with the stock. He also cut wood and carried
water for the cook.
12

Several routes were used for those early cattle drives but the most fainous
was the Chisholm Trail name after Jesse Chisholm who first marked a trail
northward across Indian Territory in 1865.
Another route was the
Goodnight-Loving Trail, named after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving
who drove herds from West Texas to New Mexico and Colorado.
But by the mid 1890's, when young Bud Walters arrived in Texas, a
network of railroads made the long cattle drives north unnecessary.
However cattle were still being driven westward and northwestward from
Texas to Arizona Territory and California.
Bud re1nained in Texas that first winter and the following spring, now
fifteen years old, he joined a cattle drive as wrangler moving a herd from
Texas northwest through New Mexico and Arizona Territories. He had
a large number of horses to look after - each cowboy had from five to
twelve head. His pay was twenty dollars a month and board.
At the end of that trail job he travelled to California, saw the Pacific Ocean
and visited the young city of Los Angeles. The motion picture camera had
just been invented but it would be another ten years before the first feature
length movie, "The Birth of a Nation'', would be filmed. When Bud Walters
passed through Los Angeles, Hollywood was still a small unknown
community eight miles outside of town.
He went north, rode a cable car in San Francisco, and passed through the
young city of Oakland across the bay. Eleven years later, on the morning
of April 18, 1906, everything Bud Walters had seen in the city by the
golden gate was suddenly destroyed by a violent earthquake and
devastating fire that killed 700 people.
From San Francisco he rode east through Nevada to Wyoming where he
found work as a cowboy for Shields Cattle Company which ran 14,000
head. Later he and a Mexican got jobs breaking horses for four different
ranches, then spent an enjoyable winter in a cabin in the Woodruff
Mountains on the Utah-Wyoming border, trapping and hunting.
13

Chapter 5
In the following spring of 1896 Bud Walters, now 16 years old, travelled
through Utah and described his visit there in a letter home to his father,
"In the spring I went on a trip through Utah among the Mormons which you
have no doubt heard of. I went and saw Great Salt Lake city built by
Mormons and the temple it took 40 years to build. It was just grand. A
fine building. It was a nice country all around Salt Lake - some good size
towns, Ogden I think is the biggest."
"I then went to work for Burks Cattle Co at American Falls, Idaho - that
is on the famous Snake River. They had about 8 thousand head. After I
quit there I went through the Jackson Hole country known as Hole In The
Wall and Robbers Roost. It is a rocky country that the outlaws and horse
thieves are supposed to all go and officers can't get them."
A year after Bud Walters passed through Wyoming's Hole In The Wall the
place became the hide-out for the last of the old time horse-riding outlaw
gangs who specialized in robbing trains and banks. Known as the "Wild
Bunch" they were led by a former Mormon, Robert LeRoy Parker, and an
easterner named Harry Longabaugh. Both became better known under
their aliases as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
From Wyoming, Bud found his way to a little town in northern Montana 30
miles south of the Canadian border called Shelby Junction where he was
hired to help round up 800 head of horses.
Shelby Junction was a water stop for steam engines on a narrow gauge
railroad that brought coal down from Lethbridge, Alberta, to the Great
Northern Railroad at Shelby and on to smelters in Great Falls, Montana.
In his book, "I'll Take The Train," Ken Liddell described the hazards facing
train crews who steamed into lawless Shelby:
"Cowboys trailing cattle into Canada would ride alongside the engine,
14

firing upon the occupants in a game that was lmown as 'smoking 'em up.'
The cowboys were a terrific hazard. When Jim Hill built the Great
N orthem Railroad through Montana he threatened to build all around the
hills to avoid the cowboys at Shelby."
Liddell also told the story of a Canadian railroad conductor who saw a
bar,tender shoot a man dead one night in a Shelby saloon and that the body
was still on the floor the following morning .
Bud Walters never commented on the wild cowboys of Shelby but he did
comment in one letter to his father,
"I have never been in trouble of any kind and I always keep myself clean
and respectable and have friends where ever I go."
In describing his job at Shelby he wrote,
"I worked for Dan Sulivan on a horse roundup at Shelby Junction that is
right across the line in Montana on the railroad from Great Falls to
Lethbridge. Their horses ran on both sides of the line. They had about
8 hundred head. We were out 38 days with 10 riders. I was riding for 15
days when a horse fell with me and hurt my ankle. Then I went to slinging
hash - cooking. We made 3 pulls a day, one after each meal. It is a sight
to see the outfit on the move. They gave me all colts on the mess wagon
- 4 of them. We would pull from 6 to 10 miles and do it all on the run."
The mess wagon that Bud spoke of was especially made to provide meals
on the trail.
Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight is credited with its
invention. It was a strong wagon covered with canvas and in its front it
carried food, supplies, tools, bedding and a barrel of water. In the rear
stood the chuck box; its hinged door let down onto a folding leg to provide
counter space for the cook. Although it was more commonly known as a
"chuckwagon." Bud described it as a "mess wagon"
"The mess wagon goes first on the trail," he wrote. "It is loaded with
15

chuck, the cook tent, and stove. There is a box fixed on the hind end of the
wagon that is called the mess box. It has shelves and drawers in it to carry
things like fruit and salt and pepper. When we found a place to stop either
at a lake or a creek the wrangler and 2 of the wild horse herders come to the
mess wagon, unhitch the horses and helps the cook to pitch the tent. It is
put close behind the wagon. Then a wagon sheet is stretched over the
wagon and fastened on the front end of the tent so the cook can reach the
mess box without going out of the tent. Then the stove is put up. They
are stoves made of sheet iron. I have cooked a meal in 30 minutes from
the time I stopped the wagon till I yelled "Take it away!"
"The grub is mostly canned stuff - tomatoes, com, peas, string beans,
navy beans, potatoes, bacon and beef when it can be carried.
The
cowboys roll in - that is, go to bed about 10 o'clock as they all have to
take turns to stand 2 hours guard over a wild herd"
Bud moved north to Sweet Grass, Montana, which is on the Canadian
border south-east of Lethbridge. The international border there was
identified by a white line painted on a wall of the customs house.
At
Sweet Grass he got a job with the D-K Ranch and in a letter to his father he
explained,
"It was a cow outfit owned by Mcarty and Company of Salt Lake City.
They ran about 10 thousand head. After we rounded up another cowboy
and myself we herded 4, 000 head of three and four year old steers for about
2 weeks. We sure had all we could do. We were riding 3 horses a day,
and had 12 head apiece, and had them all wanting a rest. We would have
to ride from 70 to 100 miles a day. It would sure surprise you with the way
they ride here - 40 miles is not called much of a ride for one horse in 4
hours. Then he gets 2 days rest."

"Then we started on the trail for winter range at Spring Coulee about 100
miles from there. It took us about 6 and a half days with 8 riders. I helped
to round up a big pasture- it was 40 miles one way and 60 the other, of
cows and calves which we branded. Then another boy by the name of Paul
16

Ryckman - who got killed afterwards by a horse - and myself took a

hunting trip in the Rocky Mountains. We had a fine time and got 4 bear
and one elk."
Fallowing his hunting trip Bud went to work for the Knight Brothers Ranch
who had about twelve thousand head of cattle. The ranch was founded by
two brothers Jessie and Raymond Knight in the l 890's. It is still in
operation today and is still using the same cattle brand that Bud used when
he worked for it a century ago. In 1946 the ranch was bought by the
Mormon church.
Inl 902 Bud crossed the border into Canada.

17

Chapter 6
"Jessie Knight, the great Mormon from Salt Lake, he is a millionaire. I
worked with his cattle up till January and then went north of the border to
Raymond, a small Mormon town, where Ray Knight the manager lives, and
broke saddle horses until March," wrote Bud. Ray Knight and Jessie
Knight were brothers who operated ranches on both sides of the border.
The southern Alberta town ofRaymond, located half way between the U.S.
border and Lethbridge, was named after Raymond Knight who founded it
a year earlier in 1901. He also founded a sugar beet industry in the area.
Alberta was originally part of Canada's Northwest Territories until 18 82
when four provincial "districts" were created-Assiniboia, Saskatchewan,
Alberta, and Athabasca - leaving the area north of 60 degrees latitude as
the Northwest Territories. In 1905 the districts of Alberta and Athabasca
were combined to become the province of Alberta, while at the same time
Saskatchewan and Athabasca were united as the province of Saskatchewan.
Bud moved on to Medicine Hat in March, 1902, and worked at a big horse
ranch. Since its construction 17 years earlier the Canadian Pacific Railway
was busy filling up the prairies with homesteaders. The new settlers
needed thousands of work horses on their farms and Bud's employer, the
Ford Ranch- running two thousand head - was doing its best to supply
them.
In the words of one historian, "homesteaders from overseas and across the
border poured into Alberta after 1900 in the proportions of an invasion."
An article in British Columbia's "Victoria Colonist" reported that in one
day in 1906 4,000 settlers arrived by train in Alberta in 48 hours. They
required 100 boxcars to carry their belongings. Land for immigrants was
dirt cheap - ten dollars and the promise to work the land for three years
would get a settler 160 acres. Bud was interested in getting a homestead
but by the time he arrived in Alberta all the good land along the railroad
belt had been taken. So he decided to go north.
18

After two months at Medicine Hat he bought three pack horses, loaded
them with supplies, and along with his saddle horse headed for the Peace
River district nine hundred miles northwest. He travelled alone, his only
companion being a dog. For the first 500 miles he had no problems but
north of the Athabaska River he encountered trouble. In a letter home he
wrote,

"I started north of the Hat with a good set of horses and got along fine until
I got across the Athabaska River, and 2 of my horses died from poison
weeds. As I only had 2 left I had to walk for 50 miles and bought another.
My pack was too heavy for 2 horses so I sold some of my grub. After I got
about 100 miles north of the Athabaska I got in the muskeg- that is boggy
land - and had a hard time of it and finally turned back. My horses were
all poor so I sold them for almost nothing and started down the North
Saskatchewan River for Battleford, 500 miles by water."
"I had nothing left but guns and a dog. I had a row boat and was 15 days
on the water. Had a fine time and saw lots of country. Killed one deer
and one antelope on the trip for meat. Saw 2 bear but did not get a shot at
them. I was sure lucky on that trip for as soon as I got to Battleford I got
a job with Lew Kramer, a horse man fro1n Montana. He was in there with
250 head of horses for sale. He was what we call peddling them. He had
a poor crew, not a man who could rope or ride a bucker. He hired me for
$40 but when he found out what I was he raised me to $60 if I would stay
until he sold out."

"It was a terror as the mosquitoes were so bad at night we had to build a
smudge for the horses. We sold 180 head at Battleford and then started
west. We did not sell any more till we got to the Dukabores. They are a
Russian class of people. A sight to see them. They call God their
Messiah and every once in a while they all start out to find him. They just
start out with no clothes on, 1nen and women and children, with no grub,
and travel."
"One time a bunch was found almost starved on the prairie. The police try
19

to keep them down. They don't eat any kind of meat or grease. They fry
their potatoes in flax seed oil. We sold them 20 head of horses. It was
fun to see them handle them colts."
Bud and his employer Lew Kramer arrived in Saskatoon on July4, 1902,
American Independence Day, and he recalled his arrival there:
"Our next stop was Saskatoon. We were there on July 4. There were
some Americans settled in that country and they were trying to have some
fun and they sure had some when we joined them. Kramer spent close to
$100 for powder as we could not get any fire crackers. I rode a couple of
buckskin bronks and we sure showed the Canadians what a good time
was."
Bud Walters remained on the prairies for two years. After Lew Kramer
sold all his horses Bud went north to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, stayed
there a while then travelled back to Medicine Hat to break horses for The
W estem Packing Company. The company had about a thousand head of
horses and some fourteen hundred cattle. When that job was :finished he
bought four horses and went into the freighting business hauling fence
posts, wire, and general supplies to prairie homesteaders.
"That was a good job but it didn't last long," he said in a letter to his dad.
"Another bronk fighter and myself then went to breaking horses for a short
time, trailed some cattle through to Medicine Hat for the McKenzy Samis
Cattle Company, then went on a hunting trip. I killed 12 antelope and 80
prairie chickens, then went punching cows again for awhile."
By 1904 Bud was now 24 years old. He had been a cowboy in almost
every western state and territory but life as a cowboy was rapidly changing.
Homesteaders were ploughing the land, barbed wire fences were crisscrossing the country, and railroads had ended the long cattle drives.
The world was changing too. In the twelve years since he rode a freight
train out of Pennsylvania, the Wright Brothers had invented the airplane,
20

Henry Ford was mass producing automobiles, and an Italian scientist

named Guglielmo Marconi was transmitting wireless signals across the
Atlantic Ocean.

21

Chapter 7
In the spring of 1905 Bud Walters decided to go to South America. He had
read about great cattle ranches in the Argentine.
Carrying only a few
possessions, his saddle and his guns, he boarded a Canadian Pacific
passenger train for Vancouver where he planned to take a ship south.
He stopped off in Kamloops to collect a debt owed him by a friend but the
friend was out of town working on a ranch. In 1905 Kamloops was a
ranching community with a population of 2,500. A unique feature of the
town was the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway which ran right
down the middle of Victoria Street, the city's main thoroughfare. People
in Kamloops bragged that they had the longest street-car line in the world.
While waiting for his friend to get into town Bud explored the area around
Kamloops then wandered down to the stockyards where he watched horses
being loaded into railway cars destined for freighting companies in
Vancouver.
A foreman of the Douglas Lake Cattle Company happened to be sitting on
the top rail ofthe shipping pen when he noticed Bud demonstrating his skill
with a lasso. He hired him for 50 dollars a month to break horses. At that
ti111e Douglas Lake Ranch was running about 10, 000 head of cattle and 300
head of horses.
Bud had not been at Douglas Lake long when he and another hired hand,
a grizzled haired man with a bushy moustache named George Edwards,
were sent to do some irrigation work. Edwards drove a wagon carrying
several Chinese labourers and some lumber across a field to repair a flume.
Bud rode behind on his saddle horse.
As the wagon neared a the crest of a steep hill Edwards, whether by
accident or design, suddenly turned the wagon at a right angle down the
steep hill and jumped off. Bud watched in horror as the Chinese were
thrown off with the lumber and killed.
22

That. night Bud warned Edwards that he should leave in the morning
otherwise he would be poisoned by the Chinese cook.
Edwards
disappeared the next day and neither Bud nor anybody else realized that the
soft spoken man was the outlaw, Bill Miner, wanted for robbing a Canadian
Pacific train west of Mission, B.C. on the night of September 10, 1904.
The following spring, on the evening of May 9, 1906, three masked men
robbed the westbound Canadian Pacific passenger train near Monte Creek,
east ofKamloops. They were hunted down and captured a week later near
the Douglas Lake Ranch. Bud Walters was no longer working at that
ranch but he recognized a picture in the "Vancouver Province" of the leader
of the train robbers, Bill Miner. It was the same man who called himself
. George Edwards, the man who drove the wagon with Chinese in itover a
bank.
On May 8, 1905, one month after he had started work at Douglas Lake, Bud
was in the horse corral taming a big black stallion named "Reggie M." He
had the end of the halter rope around his waist when something startled the
horse. It reared up, began kicking and bucking, and the rope burned across
Bud's stomach rupturing his appendix. He was laid in the back of a
democrat and driven as fast as possible over 30 miles of rough road to the
Kamloops hospital.
In 1905 the Royal Inland Hospital was down on Lome Street. It had
fourteen beds in five wards, an X-Ray machine, two doctors and four
nurses. A third doctor, a surgeon visiting from Vancouver, happened to
be at the hospital when someone from the ranch telephoned the hospital
that a patient with a ruptured appendix was on his way. The visiting
doctor was asked to stay, and it was he who operated on Bud with the
It was the first appendix operation
assistance of his two colleagues.
performed in Kamloops. Bud almost died.

In a letter home to his dad dated May 25, 1905, he wrote,

"I am feeling a little better every day and am getting a little stronger.
23

hope to be out soon. I was only working one month when I got sick. I will
go back as soon as I get well. This operation is going to cost me a couple
of hundred dollars, if not more. They charge more here than they do in the
east. I will soon get square with this."
A week later he wrote his father another letter saying,

"I am still in bed. I don't know when I will get up. They won't give me
a satisfactory answer. The pus is still running and they say I will have to
stay in bed until the wounds heal - that is to be 3 weeks yet. I have been
in here since the gth of May. I can lay on my sides a little now which is
quite a relief after laying so long on my back."
Bud remained in hospital for eighteen weeks fighting off fever and
weakness before he was finally released. He decided not to go to South
America but stay in the Kamloops area. In a letter to his dad he said,

"I have seen some fine sights in my travels and am ready now to settle
down. I like this country better than any I have been in yet, so I think I
will take up a homestead here this fall and build me up a home. There are
some fine valleys up north of here with good water and timber handy."
He went down to Ashcroft and hired on as a stagecoach driver on the
Cariboo Road between Ashcroft and Quesnel. It took one day to take the
stagecoach up to Mile 83 where he would meet the southbound stagecoach
coming down from Mile 150. Both drivers would stay overnight at the
Mile 83 and the following day Bud would drive the southbound
stagecoach down to Ashcroft.
Horses were changed every 15 miles.
The winter of 1906-07 was very cold and one morning when temperatures
well below zero he picked up several Chinese businessmen who had come
into Ashcroft by train from Vancouver. They were on their way north by
stagecoach to look at some gold mines in the Barkerville area.
Somewhere around the 70-Mile House, as Bud was slowly taking the
24

stagecoach up a long steep hill, his passengers- unknown to him - got

out and trotted alongside to warm up. But the road soon levelled off and
the stagecoach began to pick up speed. All his passengers except one
managed to get back inside. The one who was left behind froze to death.
At the inquest Bud was exonerated for any wrong doing. Seated in the icy
wind outside the stagecoach he had no idea that his passengers had got off.
With his collar and hat pulled up over his ears he did not hear their yells
over the clatter of the horses and stagecoach.
It was while working as a stagecoach driver that he met a pretty waitress at
the Ashcroft Hotel and Restaurant named Dorothea Oppenheim, the woman
who would become his wife.

25

Chapter 8
Three Oppenheimer brothers - Louis, Samuel, and Raphael - natives of
Frankfurt, Germany, arrived in the gold rush town of Sacremento,
Califomia, in 1849. When the gold ran out they followed gold seekers
north to the new gold rush on the Fraser River at Yale, British Columbia,
where they opened a store in 1858.
By coincidence, a second family of Oppenheimer brothers - Meyer,
Godfrey, Isaac, Charles and David-natives of Bavaria, arrived in New
Orleans in 1848 where they went into business. In 1853 they moved to
Lafayette, then to San Francisco and Sacramento. In 1860 they came to
British Columbia, opened a store in Victoria and established branches
through the province, including a store at Yale.
There was probably a connection between these two sets of brothers but it
has not been proven. Two of the -second five Oppenheimer brothers, David l
and Isaac, went to Vancouver in 1885 - a year before that city's
incorporation - and established the first wholesale grocery business there,
built the first brick building in Vancouver, and served on the 1887 City
Council. The following year David Oppenheimer was elected Mayor and
has been called the father of Vancouver. A statue of him stands at the
entrance to Stanley Park.
I

Louis Oppenheimer, one of the three brothers from Frankfurt, married a 14year-old girl of mixed blood at Yale in 1870. Her name was Hannah
Andrews. Hannah's mother was a native from the Seabird Island Indian
Reserve near Agassiz and her grandfather was an Indian chief named
Bellac. Nothing is known about her father. When Louis married Hannah
his two brothers were so incensed that he married a woman with native
blood that they demanded he change his name. He complied. He changed
it from Oppenheimer to Oppenheim.
Louis and Hannah Oppenheim had eight children -Philip, Rachel, Esther,
Rose, Helen, Dorothea, David and Nathan - all are Jewish names except
26

Philip. And all except Philip were baptised in the Anglican church at Yale.
Dorothea Oppenheim was born in Yale, B.C., on August 31, 1883, and
attended a parochial school at Yale named "All Hallows in the West" which
was founded and operated by the Anglican Church. Three High Anglican
nuns, Sisters of the Community of All Hallows, Ditchingham, England,
arrived from England in 18 84 to run the school. Sister Amy, a fonner
Maltese Princess was headmistress, assisted by Sisters Althea and Alice.
Dorothea remembered that the white girls at All Hallows School wore white
pinafore frocks, while she and other girls of mixed blood had to wear white
pinafore frocks trimmed in blue. The girls with the blue trim did the
menial tasks like scrubbing floors.
Dorothea's older sister, Rose, recorded some memories of what it was like
in Yale, B.C. in the late 1880's when she and Dorothea grew up there.
Until the railway came in 1880 Yale, located 115 miles from the ocean, was
the head of stem-wheel steamboat navigation on the Fraser River.
"My father came from Sacramento, California, after the 1849 gold rush at
Sutter' s Mill. He had an outfitting store for miners at Hope and moved to
Yale after his store burned down."
"Yale was quite a busy place then. All the business places were on the
river bank. There were grocery stores, fruit and clothing stores, saloons,
restaurants, billiard parlours, all doing a roaring trade. There was a
department store run by Lovell's and Romano, a butcher shop by Andy
Lyson and a fruit store by Mr. Suitor. I remember when we would deal
there, he would say 'Give the girls some grapes'."
"For recreation in the early days there were concerts, Christmas tree
parties, travelling shows. Buffalo Bill visited Yale with his show, one of
the attractions was a Tom Thumb. We went to picnics at Emory Creek,
five miles west, in an engine and caboose and stayed all day."
27

Religion played a large role in the lives of the Oppenheim girls. Even
though their father was Jewish they were baptized and confirmed in the
Anglican faith. During their years at All Hallows they became proficient
in music. Rose's notes continue:
"There were five or six music teachers at school. All had certificates from
either the Leipzig Conservatory of Music or the London or Royal
Conservatory of Music. An examiner came out from London, England ...
and I think every one of us passed and received our certificates for both of
these conservatories. We also had many missionaries stay for a few days
at our school at Yale. and they would tell of their work in Africa, Japan and
Korea. We also had lecturers from the coast to talk of poetry, literature,
and many different subjects. Every Sunday evening St. John's church in
Yale was always packed to the door and we provided a great choir."
In April, 1890, when Dorothea was only seven years old, her father died.
He was buried in the Yale cemetery. She continued to live in Yale with
her mother and siblings for two more years but in 1892 she went to live
with Mr. and Mrs. Allison in Granite City, now a ghost town near
Princeton. Her bedroom was a loft above Cook's store. As a young girl it
was one of her chores to ride six miles down to Princeton once a week on
a saddle horse and get the mail. The Allisons later lent their name to
Allison Pass, the summit of today's Hope-Princeton Highway.

When she was 18 Dorothea worked for the Rogers family in Vancouver, the
founders of the Rogers Sugar empire.
They had a big yacht and she
accompanied the family on their boat looking after their children as they
toured the coast. Later she worked at Revelstoke, then at the Ashcroft
Hotel where she waited on tables.
One day the Chinese cook at the Ashcroft Hotel was screaming at Dorothea
Oppenheim when he suddenly felt two big hands tightening around his
throat. A fiery eyed man loomed over him and threatened to kill him if he
didn't lay off the waitress. The owner of the hands was Bud Walters.
28

Chapter 9
Their wedding certificate declared that Clyde B. Walters and Miss Dorothea
Oppenheim were united in holy matrimony according to the laws of God and the State
of Washington on the tenth day of June, 1907. They went to Tacoma to get married
because Bud's brother Guy was working in a coal mine near there. He was one of the
two witnesses as the quiet ceremony.
For a short time Bud joined Guy at the mine operating a diamond drill but it wasn't
long before he and Dorothea were back in the Ashcroft area. He registered a
homestead in Back Valley between Cache Creek and Deadman' s Creek, built a cabin
for himself and Dora, and found work on a small ranch owned by a Mr. L.H. Beamish
on nearby Deadman' s Creek. Beamish called his place Cultus Lake Ranch.

The 160 acre ranch was located at the end of a fifteen mile road that passed
from brown desert, at the junction of the Kamloops-Ashcroft highway, to green
farmland along the winding Deadman' s Creek. Despite its name there was no
lake at Cultus Lake ranch. There may have been a pond there at one time but
in 1910 it was just a narrow strip of boggy ground full of reeds, bull rushes, and
swamp grass that cut through the middle of a field. Years earlier the local
Indians had given the place its name. In the Chinook language "cultus" means
worthless or bad.
Deadman' s Creek received its 01ninous name early in the nineteenth century
when fur traders used the valley as a route to carry trade goods to their northern
outposts and bring out furs. A clerk of the North West Fur Company named
Charette was found knifed to death beside this river and it became known as
Riviere des Defuncts, then Knife River, and later, Deadman' s Creek.
The valley of Deadman' s Creek runs northwest up into a plateau from its
junction with the Thompson River past volcanic cliffs and high pillars of
eroded rock called hoodoos. At the end of the last ice age roaring meltwater
from the Cariboo surged down this valley creating an enormous delta six
hundred feet thick, half a mile wide at its mouth, and twenty miles long. The
upper part of this great delta ended a few miles beyond the Beamish ranch.
29

In 1907, the same year that Bud and Dora came back from Tacoma, another American

named Charles E. Barnes was also in the Ashcroft area. He was a land surveyor and
was doing some work one day fourteen miles east of Ashcroft when he beheld an apple
orchard in the desert beside the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. Its owner was a 58year-old ranch widow named Catharine Pennie whose husband Charles had homesteaded the site forty years earlier. When the railway came through their property in
1884 the name "Pennies" was painted on a board and nailed above the bay window of
an isolated station one mile east of the farm. Mrs. Pennie pointed to a small stream
that flowed down a gulley and dropped into the Thompson River far below and
explained to Barnes in her Scottish accent that this is where she got the water
to irrigate her orchard.
Barnes was an entrepreneur as well as a land surveyor and was so impressed
by Pennie's apple trees that he convinced an English company to develop a
huge orchard on both sides of the Thompson River. In her book, "Walhachin,
Catastrophe or Camelot?", Joan Weir describes how the London based British
Columbia Development Association bought Pennie's farm, plus an adjacent
ranch, as well as some 3,000 acres across the river. The intent was to turn the
whole Thompson River benchland into one huge orchard. Barnes was
appointed manager of the ambitious project.
. Ten acre holdings were sold to upper-class Englishmen and soon a colony of
English aristocracy, including descendants of Lord Nelson, Cecil Rhodes and
King George V, was created in the desert. The "Pennie's" railroad station was
renamed Walhachin - an Indian word that meant land of round rocks - and
a townsite was surveyed.
A carpenter named Bertrand Chase Footner came out from England ahead of
the settlers to build houses for the setlement. Every house in the new town of
Walhachin had indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, nine-foot
ceilings, carbide lighting and a large stone fireplace. A golf course was laid
out, a polo field was planned, and a two-storey hotel was built featuring a
billiard room, ladies lounge, smoking lounge, two bars, and a restaurant that
served only upper class clientele.

30

At first it was planned to irrigate the orchards with water from Brassey Creek
and another small stream but it was soon realized that th~se two sources would
not provide enough water for thousands of new trees to be planted on the
opposite side of the Thompson River. Rainfall in the area is only six or seven
inches a year.
Between the fall of 1909 and the spring of 1910 a combination irrigation canal
and wooden flume six feet wide, thirty inches deep, and twenty miles long was
built from Snohoosh Lake on the upper Deadman's Creek to water the arid
fields opposite Walhachin.
Bud Walters helped build it.
He quit his job at the Beamish ranch and using his team of horses he joined
other construction men dragging earth moving scrapers called fresnos to scoop
out a canal around the barren hillsides. Where the big ditch couldn't be dug
because of rocks and cliffs, Walters and other men hauled lumber in wagons
pulled by four-horse teams from a sawmill at Savona to build a wooden flume
over sage brush covered gullies and around rocky outcrops. A few blackened
sun blistered planks from this aqueduct can still be seen today hanging from
litchen covered rocks above the Trans-Canada Highway opposite Walhachin
From her isolated cabin high above Deadman's Creek valley, Dora Walters
with her two-year-old son Douglas and baby daughter Violet, would often walk
out on to a rocky ledge and watch her husband far down in the valley below
them slowly hauling lumber up to the Snohoosh Lake dam.
They were lonely days for Dora. She had no neighbours and few conveniences.
One day she and little Douglas were out at their spring fetching water when she
saw fresh cougar tracks in the mud. The narrow pathway leading back to the
cabin was bordered by brush and her two year old son, afraid of being eaten by
a panther, pushed past Dora muttering, "Dam1nit mother! Get out of the way!"
Cougar or no cougar Dora set down her bucket, broke off a small branch, and
impressed young Douglas to act more like a gentleman.
31

When the flume project ended Walters found work as a teamster hauling logs
into the Monarch Sawmill at Savona, and transporting lumber from that mill to
repair the. Walhachin flume that was plagued by flash floods caused by
cloudbursts.
By 1912 the Walhachin orchard project was deep in debt and its British
backers removed their support. The company found a new sponsor, the Sixth
Marquis of Angelesy who came out from Britain, injected more cash into the
failing enterprise, and built a beautiful home in the sage brush across the river
from Walhachin. His estate included a fieldstone basement with a wine room
and a concrete sidewalk that led to a cement lined swimming pool. Only titled
aristocrats were allowed to use it.
Lord Angelsey established a cattle ranch in conjunction with the orchards and
hired Bud Walters as one of his cowboys. Bud abandoned his lonely
homestead in Back Valley and he, Dora, and their children moved to
Walhachin. He was glad of the job with the marquis but in his heart he wanted
his own ranch, and the Beamish ranch was the one he had in mind.
On March 1, 1913, Beamish received permission from Ottawa to open a post
office in his log house. It was assigned the official name of Cultus Lake Post
Office and served about two dozen isolated settlers in the backwoods of
Deadman's Creek valley.
Many of those pioneers were from the United States. Ed Striker hailed from
Montana. Edward London, a staunch southerner, came from Cedar Grove,
Louisana - he homesteaded the upper Deadman in 1912 with his wife, three
sons and a daughter. Jarvis Turner and his wife and four children drove a
covered wagon all the way from Cripple Creek, Colorado, to homestead at
nearby Criss Creek. Frederick W. Boyer was born in Crookstown, Minnesota.
On August 12, 1914, only seven days after World War I began, Boyer rode
down from Deadman' s Creek to Savona, boarded a train to Kamloops, and
enlisted in "H" Company of the 31st British Columbia Horse. On his enlistment
paper under "occupation" he wrote, "Cowpuncher from Deadman's Creek."
32

Boyer was the first of five soldiers from the Savona area killed in the first world
war .
About 1914 Bud Walters went into partnership with a Vancouver business man
named Harry Devane and they bought Beamish' s Cultus Lake ranch. Beamish
resigned as postmaster on April 11, 1914, and this is probably when Walters
and Devane took ownership. Devane never did live on the place nor did
Walters occupy the ranch himself until 1920. They rented it out and the Walters
lived alternately in Walhachin and Savona so that their children - they had
five now - could attend school.
On May 7, 1914, the Canadian Post Office replaced Beamish with a man
named J. Fyfe as postmaster. Fyfe ran the Cultus Lake post office until June
30, 1915, when it was closed. Presumably he was the ranch's first tenant after
the place was bought by Walters and Devane .
The second tenant appears to have been Ed Scott who in 1917, after prohibition
took effect in British Columbia, built a still and paid a friend in Walhachin to
peddle his moonshine in the Okanagan. Years later parts of Scott's old still
were found up Gorge Creek above the house .
In the l 990's Bud's eldest daughter Vi Stanyer gave an overview of their life
at that time:
"When Doug became of school age we moved to W alhachin. and for the next
12 years it was a hit or miss education for all of us - either in W alhachin or
Savona during school term and out at the ranch for the summer. Sometimes
we missed school for two years before going back again. Our youngest sister,
June, who was born in Ashcroft in 1919, started school in Savona and finished
up in the Deadman Creek school when it opened in 1934. Dad cowboyed for
both the old Lemonade Ranch west of Savona and the Angle C Ranch at
Walhachin. He also worked one logging season down at the coast and I
remember him coming home with little grey visitors in his hair."
In July, 1920, Bud brought his family and a small herd of Hereford cattle to the

33

ranch.
He registered a cattle brand and chose as his trademark a circle with the first
letter of his last name, "W', inside it. This was not an unusual type ofbrand.
Three other ranchers in the Kamloops area had similar brands - the Leighton
Brothers of Savona had the Circle L, Joe Bulman had the Circle J, and back in
1877 a rancher named S. Moore registered the Circle M.
Both Walters' brand and his ranch became known as the Circle W.

34'

Chapter 10
Bud and Dora lived at the Circle W for two years and tried home schooling
their children through correspondence but it didn't work out. In1922 they
1noved back to Walhachin for two years and returned to the ranch in 1924, this
time to stay.
One day in the fall of 1924, only a few months after they-had come back, three
ofBud and Dora's children, Myrtle, Jack, and five-year-old June, were walking
up the trail toward Brousseau Meadows when they turned and saw smoke
billowing into the sky behind them. They ran home and were met by their
father pointing to the smoking ruins of their log house.
"It's gone, all gone," were his only comments.
The fire started in the attic. There was no insurance and the only thing of
value saved was a sewing machine.
Undaunted, Bud hired two four-horse teams, two carpenters, and a crew of
labourers to go down to Walhachin, dismantle a deserted house, bring it to the
ranch, and re-erect it on its new site. In the meantime the family would live in
a ranch outbuilding.
Two years earlier, in 1922, the last of Lord Angelsey' s 180 settlers moved out
of the debt ridden orchard colony and except for railway employees Walhachin
was deserted. When the colonists departed they sold their portable assets bone china, sterling silver, linen - for next to nothing. Their houses, where
only a few years earlier genteel English occupants dressed in fashionable
evening clothes for dinner, now stood empty and unoccupied. Dora Walters
watched appalled as people for miles around came and carried off flush toilets,
pedestal sinks, and deep English bathtubs.
The hotel's dining room, the one that catered only to aristocratic clientele,
became a place where local hunters skinned and dressed deer from the rafters.
Later the whole two-storey building was tom down room by room and burned

35

-------------

--

--

for firewood. Fuel was so scarce in treeless Walhachin during the great
depression that in January, 1931, the "Kamloops Sentinel" reported that
cordwood was being shipped to the people of Walhachin in railway boxcars
from Copper Creek, twelve miles away.
The rows and rows of apple trees no longer received water because of a
washed-out flume but they struggled to blossom each spring and bear fruit each
fall until they too eventually withered and died.
The house that Bud Walters selected was an abandoned 1,200 square foot
single storey building with a bungalow roof. It containing a living room, a
large kitchen, three small bedrooms and a bathroom that unfortunately no
longer contained any fixtures. A wide-roofed porch ran along the front and
down one side. It is unknown whether Walters paid anything for it, but if so,
it would have been only a small sum. The building was one of many built by
Bertram Chase Footner, a competent builder from England who not only
designed and constructed the orchardists' houses but who in 1913 also built a
jail and constable's living quarters at nearby Savona. That building still stands
today as good as new.
A peculiarity about the Walters' house was that sections of it were fastened
together with bolts as though it was pre-fabricated. For Bud Walters this made
it convenient to move. When he re- erected it at his ranch it was discovered
that two thin partitions separating two bedrooms from the living room could be
unbolted and removed to create one large room. Apparently when it was in
Walhachin these partitions were temporarily removed from time to time so this
particular house could double as a church or a meeting hall.
In the decade that the English colonists dwelt at W alhachin they never built a
church. They did however build a community hall that contained a stage for
theatrical productions and a grand piano for fancy dress balls. The hall was
originally steam heated and is still in the townsite, but the grand piano - one
used by famed pianist Paderewski on a North American tour - was taken for
safekeeping to the University of British Columbia at Vancouver.
36

The Walters family, which now consisted of six children, moved in to their new
ranch house just before Christmas, 1924. Over the next twenty years many
happy dances were held in that home. The family would unbolt the two
movable partitions, gather an orchestra of local musicians, including their son
Jack on a guitar, and dance until daylight.
Bud Walters reinstalled plumbing to the building by piping water from nearby
Gorge Creek and mounted a cast iron hot water jacket in the wood burning
kitchen range. The house was now serviced by both hot and cold running water
in the kitchen. About 1930 he installed a flush toilet and a bath tub.
The luxuries of electricity and telephone however never arrived on Deadman' s
Creek until ten years after the Walters moved away. The nearest telephone was
at the Savona post office twenty miles away, and the nearest electrical outlet
was another twenty-five miles beyond that at Kamloops.

37

Chapter 11
Bud and Dora Walters taught their children responsibility at an early age.
When he was only eight years old Jack's mother gave him a .22 calibre rifle and a box
of shells. It was a Remington with a hammer and an octagonal barrel. When he was
twelve his dad sent him on an errand to the Mound Ranch to bring back eight work
horses that were pastured there. The Mound Ranch was owned by Bud's brother Guy
and was fifty miles away by road and trail.
Jack saddled up his pony rode, five miles down the Deadman' s Creek road to a place
known as Split Rock, turned off on to the Back Valley Road, went past several lakes
and came out on the main highway opposite Charlie Semlin' s Dominion Ranch. From
there he travelled west two miles to the village of Cache Creek, which consisted of a
few unpainted buildings and a small store run by a Chinese, then turned north and
proceeded up the old Cariboo stagecoach road to the 20-Mile House. At that point he
branched off to the Loon Lake Road then to a trail which parallelled the Bonaparte
River for ten miles before :finally arriving at his uncle's ranch.
He stayed for five days to visit his older brother Doug before setting out for home.
Travelling back was slower because he was herding eight big horses. By sundown
he made it as far as the Dominion Ranch where he was given supper and a place to
spend the night. Before going to bed the housekeeper asked him to go into ci bedroom
and say hello to Charlie Semlin, . the ranch owner.
Semlin was a 91 years old bed ridden bachelor who had come out from Ontario in 1862
before there was a railroad. He worked at a number of occupations including saloon
keeper and politician and in 1898 he became the twelfth premier of British Columbia.
He was now the owner of a 12,000 acre ranch. Young Jack was fascinated at the way
the old man's false teeth clattered when he talked.
The following morning Jack saddled his horse, herded the eight work horses out of the
Semlin corral and headed home. There were no telephones on Deadman' s Creek in
those days and until his parents saw him riding into the yard with the horses they had
not heard a word about him. But they had confidence in their young son's abilities.
When their youngest daughter June was still a baby Bud put a pillow in front of his
38

saddle for her to sit on and she spent many hours that way with him on horseback until
she learned how to ride solo.
One day when she was still a young girl June was riding a horse around the Circle W
corral as her dad stood watching. Suddenly the horse started to buck. After the second
jump June grabbed the saddle horn and off she went into the dirt She got up and
started to lead the horse out of the corral when her dad walked over to her and said,
"Take that horse back into the corral and ride him out in the same spot. He will buck
with you again and don't you dare touch that horn, or you will put yourself off. If you
hadn't grabbed the horn you could have rode him."
June led the horse back into the corral, climbed on, and sure enough he tried to buck
again. But June did not touch the saddle horn and she stayed on. Her dad was a good
teacher.
Bud taught all six of his children how to ride horses, how to round up calves for
branding, and how to castrate young bulls. As they turned the crank on his
blacksmith's forge they learned how to weld toe and heel caulks to horse-shoes.
Caulks prevented horses from slipping on muddy slopes. He taught them how to shoe
horses, how to butcher beef, how to make a diamond hitch. Before they were in their
teens he gave them the responsibility of herding cattle up to the summer range or taking
small herds twenty miles down to the railroad at Savona for shipment to Vancouver.
He showed them how to build roads, operate a sawmill, and drive a car before they
were in their teens.
They used to put up their own hay and when June was only eight years old she was
driving a big Clyde mare hooked to a derrick that loaded hay into stacks. At age ten
she was operating a hay rake.
When she was fourteen she helped her sisters take the cattle to a leased meadow in the
high country for winter feeding. She left her sisters in the meadow and was returning
home alone down a snow covered hill when her horse fell with her. She was knocked
unconscious and dragged a hundred and fifty feet before her boot came out of the
stirrup. She came to, found her boot and her horse, and does not remember leading it
the rest of the way home. When she arrived at the ranch house she had a bad cut on
the side of her head was covered with blood. After two days in bed her parents drove
her to the Kamloops hospital where she woke up six days later.
39

June's older sister Vi once remarked that her.mother worried about her children's
safety and prayed a lot.
old enough to start riding with her dad - a
When Vi~ was eight years old neighbouring rancher named Bill Uren had a beautiful herd of homed Herefords. He
wanted to go into the sheep business so he sold his herd of 50 cattle to Walters. At
that time cattle were shipped in railway cattle cars. The buyers were complaining about
hides for leather being bruised and tom while en route to Vancouver. Vi remembers
the horrible smell of blood at the dinner table as her dad and a hired man who were
dehorning the herd with saws, took time out to come in for lunch.
Bud went to Alberta and brought back fourteen Aberdeen Angus cows and one bull and
successfiilly bred succeeding herds of cattle without horns. At first a few calves were
still born with horns but in time they were all nulies with black as well as white faces.
One spring day a few years later when Vi was 15, she and her younger sisters Rita 13,
and Myrtle 12, along with their brother Jack who was 10, were asked by their dad to
take their cattle up to the summer range. It was a good twelve hour drive from the
Circle W home ranch to the summer range and the four young cattle drivers had to
make their own meals and camp out overnight with only a tarp. No tent.
"By the time we got to Shovel Creek we were all tired, the mosquitoes were eating us,
the flies were pestering the horses and cattle to the point where the cattle wouldn't stay
on the road, their little calves were tired. And Myrtle rode into the jackpines that were
quite close together. A forest fire had been through there and left the bark black on the
standing trees. Mert was pushing the trees away from her knees, and the mosquitoes
were biting her face and neck, she was slapping them, and by the time she got back on
the road she looked like 'Rastus'. Jack, always wanting to laugh, said 'Hi da' boy,
wha you' all cum frum?' Jack and I laughed andMert started to cry, so Rita went after
Jack andhe started to cry. I got angry at Rita and explained every one was tired. And
I felt pretty bad myself. And just then a carving on one of the poplar trees caught my
eye. It was done by one of the cowboys from the Semlin Ranch years before, right
down the side of the tree. It read, 'TIRED AND MAD C.S.' 'C.S.' stood for Charlie
Sanford, one of the natives who worked for Semlin. We all laughed realizing even men
got tired."
The Circle W cattle ranged 40 miles from the ranch house and each fall the young
40

Walters kids rode their saddle horses off into the hills to round up their cows. They
took one packhorse with them to carry their food and blankets, camped under the trees
and only put a tarp up if it looked like rain.
A year later when she was 16, Vi and her sister Rita went up into the hills to round up
calves that had been too young to brand when they were put out in the spring. They
herded them in a field corral and later their dad and mother with little sister June came
up by car and camped. Using the Circle W branding iron, Vi and her dad spent the
next two days roping and branding the calves, ear marking them, and castrating young
bulls. In the midst of doing this a neighbouring rancher and his 16 year old son stopped
by and the father was very surprised to see a girl doing that kind of work.
Bud's oldest son, Douglas, left home and went to live with his dad's brother Guy who
had a ranch over at Clinton. The father and son did not get along too well and Bud
probably understood because he had left home himself at the age of 14 because of his
step-mother.
When cattle had to be herded down to the Canadian Pacific Railway shipping corral at
Savona the job was assigned to Vi, Myrtle, Rita, and Jack. Later when June was old
enough she too helped with the twenty mile cattle drive.
"I can tell you it was real excitement for us young cow-punchers," recalled Vi. "I don't
know exactly how the buyer was contacted - I'm just surmising that dad would drive
to the nearest telephone which was at Savona, and contact a buyer either at Kamloops
or Vancouver. The buyer would notify the railroad to have a cattle car put on the side
track on a certain day, and the buyer would arrive by train the day they were being
loaded to inspect tl1e animals and watch while they were being weigl1ed. The Savona
postmaster was in charge of weighing."
~'We

herded them as far as the crossing of Deadman' s Creek, about four miles from
Savona, and camped for the night. The reason for this was to keep their weight. Dad
met us there with a truck load of hay so when we started off for Savona next morning
the cattle were well fed and watered. There was no feed in the shipping corral. Only
water. And it was our job to fill the trough from a tap they had there."
Vi's sister June remembered that when they camped at Lemonade Flats just above
Deadman's Creek they slept in the abandoned flume that once carried water to the
41

orchards of W alhachin. The plank trough was six feet wide and a foot and a half high.
They were afraid to sleep on the ground because of rattlesnakes.
After fording Deadman's Creek the following morning the three mile drive to Savona
went right down the main highway and across the Thompson River bridge into town.
People in Savona stopped to look as twenty-five bawling cattle moved along the
gravel road past the two general stores, then up across the railway tracks into the
shipping corral. It wasn't unusual to see cattle being driven through Savona but it was
a little unusual to see them being herded by three girls and a young boy.
In the summer of 1926 Bud and Dora realized that their youngest children had to go
back to school so they rented a house in Savona and a short time later bought one down
by the lakeshore. Bud remained at the ranch and Dora stayed in Savona with the
children. She went home to the ranch on holidays and as often as she could until 1932
when they sold the Savona house and she moved back to the ranch. Jtme finished her
education at a new one-room school that opened in the Deadman' s Creek valley in the
fall of 1934.

42

Chapter 12
About ten miles southeast of the Circle W Ranch, half way to Savona, is the
Skeetchestn village of the Shuswap Nation. It is a prosperous looking village now
with neatly painted houses, television dishes, and a new school that not only enrols
both native and white children from kindergarten to grade ten but also provides them
with hot meals. But it wasn't always like this.
Back ill the 1920's when Bud and Dora Walters became their neighbours the
Skeetchestns were known simply as the Deadman' s Creek Indians and they were very
poor. Like some of the single white squatters who lived far out in the Upper Deadman,
many of the Skeetchestn lived in log houses with dirt floors and sewed a lot of their
clotliing from bolts of cloth and buckskin. They hm1ted and trapped, raised a few
cattle, found ranch work where they could, and peddled firewood - labouriously cut
with axes and crosscut saws - to the people of Savona.
A few talented women created magnificent moccasins and gauntlets artfully decorated
with tiny red and green glass beads sewn into floral patterns. Some they wore and
some they bartered at one of Savona' s two general stores. Making the buckskin itself
was a work of art. The process involved hours of smoking deer hides over a slow
burning fire, stretcliing the skins on wooden frames, continually poking them with the
rounded end of a stick, then re-stretching them until they were soft and pliable. When
they were ready to be cut and sewn the buckskins gave off a unique scent of aromatic
woodsmoke.
In 1861, ten years before British Columbia became a province of Canada its governor,
Sir James Douglas, established the first Indian reserves in the colony. He was
sympathetic towards the aboriginals partly because he was of mixed blood himself. He
spent liis boyhood on a sugar plantation in British Guiana. His policy in defining the
size of reserves was to allow the Indians to select as much land as they wanted. The
Skeetchestn chose a strip two miles wide extending from the west end of Kamloops
Lake at Savona to a point ten miles up Deadman's Creek. Ten years later when
British Colmnbia became a province Joseph Trutch, its first Lieutenant Governor,
believed that the Indians had no right to the lands they claimed and he began a policy
of reducing tl1e size of 1nany reserves in tl1e province. It was his opinion t11at the
aborigines were lawless, violent and uncivilized savages.

43

The natives complained but nobody listened. In 1874 a demonstration was held in
New Westminster by chiefs of the Fraser Valley bands against the encroachment of
whites on their reserves but it accomplished nothing. For the next forty years the
Indians watched as their reserves were gradually reduced on a piecemeal basis.
Frustrated, they sent a delegation of three chiefs to London in 1906 to take their
complaints directly to the British Colonial Office and to the King himself. One of those
three chiefs was Bazel David Canopat of the Bonaparte band near Deadman's Creek.
Starting at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon of August 13, 1906, the three chiefs and their
interpreter held a half hour audience with King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in
the throne room at Buckingham Palace. The King shook hands with the trio who stood
attired in their native clothing, listened to their complaint, and directed them where to
take their problem. Before they left he gave each of them a Queen Victoria gold medal
and they in tum presented the Queen with some beautiful basket work.
The trip to Buckingham Palace, however eventful, did nothing to stop the continued
reduction of Indian reserves. In September, 1912, a royal commission called the
McKenna-McBride Agreement was set up to examine native land claims in British
Columbia. In 1916 when it issued its report, thirty-one reserves in the province lost an
additional 35,000 acres.
The Skeetchestn Band was not one of those reserves. However it did lose part of its
reserve in 1866 when tl1e Cache-Creek Savona road was built. Eighteen feet wide and
twenty-three miles long, it cut diagonally through the lower part of the reserve. In
1912 the Canadian Northern (now the Canadian National) Railway built its roadbed
through two miles of Indian land along the Thompson River
In 1891 the Census of Canada enumerated 85 people living on the Deadman's Creek
reserve. Thirty-two of them were children. One 70-year old man named Sisiaskat was
identified as "Indian Chief', while 25 other adult males were listed either as cattle
herders, farm labourers, or hunters.

During the great depression of the l 930's they barely had enough money for salt, tea
and sugar, or the means to buy bullets, bolts of cloth and the other necessities of life.
John Edwards, whose father owned one of Savona' s two stores, recalls that the Indian
Agent gave the store credit vouchers of five dollars a month for each Indian who was
the head oflris household. His spouse got two dollars and fifty cents. The store owner
44

had to account to the Indian agent how money was spent. It was not to be used for
luxuries, although there were times when an Indian bought tobacco and the merchant
wrote down the sale as sugar, tea or some other deemed necessity.
No one lrnows how many millennia the Skeetchsyn inhabited the Deadman's Creek
valley but it has been theorized at about 7,000 years. The late W.H. Mathews,
Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and C.E.
Borden, Professor Emeritus of Archaelogy, found evidence in 1957 that humans
occupied a site 7,000 years ago two miles upstream from Yale. They based their
estimate on the discovery of crudely fashioned artifacts, cultural remains, and numerous
charred cherry pits that were dated by the radiocarbon method. They deduced that the
Indians gathered wild cherries during the annual salmon run and when they sat around
their camp fires they spit the pits into the camp fires which charred and preserved them
for analysis. They named the location "The Milliken Site" after Mr. August Milliken
of Yale who discovered it.
The transition from a purely native way of life to a white man's world began in the fall
of 1811 when David Stuart and Alexander Ross of the Pacific Fur Company arrived
from Fort George, five hundred miles to the south at the mouth of the Colmnbia River,
and built a trading post where the North Thompson and South Thompson rivers meet.
The Shuswaps called the place Kamloops which meant "the meeting of the waters".
The fur traders were followed in 1842 by Roman Catholic missionaries, and in 1862
by smallpox bacteria. It is arguable which did more harm to the natives - the
smallpox which wiped out one third of their population, or the church and state which
attempted cultural genocide.
In 1920, the year the Walters family arrived on the Circle W, the Canadian government
passed an amendment to the Indian Act making it compulsory for all native children to
attend industrial or boarding schools. They were to be taken - by force if necessary
- from their homes and families and put in church run boarding schools miles from
home. Every August the Skeetchstn children were picked up in flat deck trucks and
delivered to the Indian Residential School at Kamloops. They didn't see their parents
again for eleven months when they were trucked home in July for a one month
vacation. The government's reasoning for this treatment was to displace and eliminate
indigenous culture by separating the children from their parents.

45

When the truck came armmd to the reserve some of the smaller children would cling
tightly to their mother or dad's legs, begging them not to let the priests take them.
Others ran off into the bush only to be hunted down.
Les Swimme was one ofthose boys who remembered what it was like. He was trucked
every August from his reserve at Lillooet to Kamloops. "When the truck came to the
reserve none of us wanted to leave home. We lmew we wouldn't be seeing our parents
for a year. There was a little board fence around the sides of the truck to stop kids
from falling out, and ropes at the back There were two hard benches, one down each
side, but as we stopped to pick up more kids there wasn't enough room on the benches.
So some had to lay in the middle on the floor."
"Kids were crying and pretty soon someone would throw up. Then everybody started
throwing up. There'd be twenty or twenty-five kids ranging in ages between seven to
thirteen or fourteen crowded on to the back of that truck. It was an all day affair. We
stopped at places like the Bonaparte Reserve just out of Cache Creek, and I think we
stopped at 8-Mile Creek so us kids could get a drink of water and maybe go to the
toilet. The trips were always made in summer and the ride was very hot and dusty. We
called it the cattle truck."
"They said the parents could come to Kamloops and visit us but Indians had no cars
in those days and no money, so they couldn't come and visit. We couldn't go home for
Christmas. We only got to go home in July for one month."
"Some of the new kids couldn't speak English. I remember one boy at the school
asking me how to say something in English, because he didn't know how, and a priest
over heard us talking in our native tongue. We had our mouths washed out with soap
and water. I rode that truck for three years before my grandfather, who was a chief,
somehow arranged for me to attend the public school with white kids at Savona."
Les was lucky only to have his mouth washed out with soap and water. In the book
"Resistance and Renewal, Surviving the Indian Residential School," Randy Fred
described what happened to Indian kids at the Alberni Indian Residential School who
got caught speaking their native language:
"My father, who attended Albemi Indian Residential School for four years in the
twenties, was physically tortured by his teachers for speaking Tseshaht: they pushed
46

sewing needles through his tongue, a routine punishment for language offenders."
Bud and Dora Walters made friends with their native neighbours and they were always
welcome on the reserve. For amusement during the summer months the Indians
organized amateur rodeos in their corral every two weeks. The Walters family were
always invited Bud, with his background in cowboying, was usually the judge. Dora
would bring with her in the family's six-cylinder Chalmers touring car an ice cream
maker, a gallon of cream, some vanilla flavouring and a big block of ice. The Walters'
kids took turns cranking the handle until everybody on the reserve had their fill of ice
cream.
Bud had not lived at the Circle W very long when he watched natives from the reserve
passing through his place on horseback leading one or more packhorses. When they
returned the packhorses were laden with smoked fish. They told him they caught the
trout in a lake about twelve miles up a trail through stands of spn1ce and jackpine, and
said the lake was swimming with fish. They called the lake "Hihiume" which meant
"place where there are many fish."
Bud visited the lake, which was about three miles long and a mile across at its widest
place, and confirmed it was an angler's paradise. Finding this lake would change the
course of his life.

47

Chapter 13

In 1864 the colonial government of British Cohunbia constructed a wagon road from
the head of navigation at Yale to the Cariboo gold fields at Williams Creek. Carved
around perpendicular cliffs in the Fraser canyon and through rolling timberlands ofthe
Cariboo it was considered by many as the eighth wonder of the world. While it was
under construction a packer named Frank J. Barnard won the government mail contract
and operated a mule train over the unfinished road. As soon as the highway was
completed Barnard initiated a stage coach line over its three hundred and eighty miles
making. it the longest stage coach line in the world.
Twenty-six years later, on May 14, 1880, a blast of dynamite exploded in the Fraser
Canyon at Yale, signalling the start of Canadian Pacific Railway construction eastward
through British Columbia. A New York contractor named Andrew Onderdonk and two
thousand Chinese coolies laboured for the next five years to create a railroad from the
Pacific Ocean at Port Moody to Savona on Kamloops Lake. During those five years
thirty-two miles ofthe Cari.boo wagon road were destroyed severing the only road link
between the coast and the interior. It remained severed for forty-six years. A smaller
stagecoach line continued to serve the Cariboo until 1920, but only from the rail line
at Ashcroft.
On August 24, 1923, "The Kamloops Sentinel" reported that two Kamloops men,
Weston Frost and his brother-in-law H. Murchie, ''made a remarkably quick trip from
Vancouver by auto, arriving in Kamloops on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in 30 hours for the 650
miles via Everett, Snoqualmi Pass, Bluett Pass, Wenatchee and the Okanagan."
The same month that Weston and Murchie made their epic trip a provincial engineer
explored what was left of the old stage coach road to the coast. He concluded that to
reopen the highway from Vancouver would require building only thirty-two miles of
road from Yale to Boston Bar and upgrading probably another twenty miles at various
places to make it passable for automobiles.
When rebuilding of the highway began in 1925 Bud Walters told a group of men,
"When that road re-opens the future is in tourism boys." He immediately began
construction of a fishing lodge at Hihiume Lake that would cater to tourists who would
drive their vehicles over that new road.

48

Using pack horses Walters moved tools and building materials nine miles into Hihiume
Lake and built five cabins. Four were made oflogs and the fifth from lumber cut in his
own three-man sawmill at the ranch. Each of the log cabins were built on a separate
point of the lake which he named "Duck Point", "Owl Point", "Moose Point'', and
"Eagle Point", names that are still in use today. The fifth cabin was the home cabin.
The first six miles up from the ranch was a steep climb that zig zagged up a centuries
old Indian trail. Over this trail his pack horses took up lumber, doors, windows, coaloil lamps, beds, stoves, and all the other things needed to build a fishing lodge.
He hand hewed small logs for the cabin floors and raised the walls with block and
tackle and a team of horses. Each cabin was about twelve feet wide and twenty-four
feet long. Three of them had two double beds. A fourth, at Eagle Point, had log walls
but a canvas roof and would sleep a party of eight. It was the favourite cabin with the
tourists because its tent roof gave guests a greater feeling of roughing it.
In October, 1926, the Auto Club of British Columbia issued a bulletin to its members
telling them that the New Cariboo Highway between Yale and Lytton was now open
and would remain open until November 1, when it would be closed until spring so that
construction work could be completed.
During that brief road opening the Walters' fishing lodge welcomed its first tourists
who drove up from Vancouver. They were escorted to the lake on saddle horses and
enjoyed themselves immensely. In September, 1926, tourists brought their first fish out
ofHihiume.
TI1e highway officially reopened the following spring on Queen Victoria's birthday,
May 24, 1927, but no opening ceremony was held because the narrow road at Jackass
Mountain was considered too dangerous for congested traffic. In many places it clung
to sheer rock bluffs a thousand feet above the Fraser River, was only ten feet wide, and
had few guard logs.
Just two weeks after it opened the "Kamloops Sentinel" reported that the first carload
of American tourists had arrived in Kamloops. The visitors were driving a Packard
eight and were described by the newspaper as "millionaires" from Los Angeles. They
said they made 20 miles an hour over the first part of the road but less on the second
part of the trip.

49

At the beginning of 1927 American tourists could only stay in Canada a maximum of
thirty days. They also had to leave their cameras and fishing tackle at the border unless
they posted a bond on them. In February the Automobile Club of British Columbia
campaigned for removal of these restrictions and met with some success. On March
1, 1927, just before the Fraser Canyon road officially opened, the Canadian
government amended the foreign automobile law and allowed Americans to spend sixty
days in Canada instead ofthirty. It was still illegal however for American businessmen
to bring their cars into Canada if they were bound for conventions or directors'
meetings.
Although the first guests at Walters' Hilriume resort were from Vancouver they were
quickly replaced by American tourists from Washington state who all drove up in their
own cars. Walters never formally advertised Iris new resort. His guests heard about
the place by word of mouth.
His daughter June recalls,
"The fislring lodge soon became dad's main source ofliving although he never charged
enough. He cut Iris cattle herd down pretty quick after the fish camp got started and
turned them over to Iris kids. He got about twenty-five or thirty horses and we would
escort people in with their own bedding. Once they were in the camp they were on
their own. We would go back in later and bring them out and take in dry ice in
cardboard boxes for their fish."
''A few of our guests arrived without reservations but most of them made reservations
by mail. We had no telephone. Most of our guests had never been on a horse but they
managed okay. The only one who ever fell off was drunk. Some guests did hunting as

well, but they hunted from the ranch, not from Hihiume."

In 1935, when June was only 16, she and her older sister Rita became the first two
female licensed guides in Canada.
About three years after he opened the fish camp Bud Walters built a road into it wide
enough for a horse-drawn two wheel cart. The finished road was three miles longer
than the old trail. Vi Walters described how she helped build it,
"The first road I recall dad building was to Brousseau Meadows, about nine or ten
50

miles from the ranch. He probably had hired help, or maybe my oldest brother anyway it was one helluva road. We used it to haul our haying equipment to the
meadows. Dad rigged up two front wheels from an old wagon and loaded the
disassembled hay rake plus a few other articles on it. Rita was the driver. I was to take
the lead with the mowing machine and a few other articles. As long as we could keep
one wheel on the "trail" it went O.K. We made it. Later Rita, my brother Jack, Jack
McAbee, and Old John Wilson and I moved the equipment over to Hihiume. We didn't
make it in one day."
''IfI remember right I think the two men were clearing a trail for us to follow. There
was one spot where we had to put a 'rough lock' on one wheel of Rita's load, and
again I had the lighter team. When we came to a little stream the horses didn't want
to step in it. So they jumped. I was lucky. They were the team that would run away
if they had a chance. They were all ready to go and I couldn't have held them, but they
divided, one on one side of a tree and the other on the other side. The tongue of the
mower hit the tree dead on and stopped them up short."
"We got to a meadow and camped overnight and John Wilson scouted ahead. John
was the son of a native woman and an Englishman and was born beside the trail on a
cattle drive inl 869. He lost three fingers when he fell into a camp fire as a kid. He
didn't talk much but when he came back from his scouting he said 'We're only about
a half mile from Hihium Lake'."
"Success!"

51

Chapter 14
There were no white settlers living on the Upper Deadman before 1900. Except for
pack trains of Hudson's Bay fur brigades that travelled some twenty miles north of
there in the l 800's, the country was unexplored until the beginning of the twentieth
century. Many of the first homesteaders who arrived before the first world war came
from the United States. Some had families but most were bachelors. They survived
in the isolated backwoods hunting, fishing and running trap lines.
Vi Walters remembers some of them:
"Bill Stevenett was a bachelor who had a homestead on Hunter Creek six or seven
miles above Dead.man Falls. He had one leg amputated below the knee and got around
on his trap line with a wooden leg. He had an old horse he called Jimmy Jackie and he
built a shed onto the end of his cabin for Jimmie Jackie and fed him pancakes through
the window. His cabin just had a dirt floor and for all the years it had been cleaned the
floor was lowered about two and a half feet and the cook-stove teetered on a hump of
dirt over knee-high. One hot summer day Rita, Jack, and I were up in his area looking
for cattle. We met Bill and Jimmy Jackie coming along the road. The mosquitoes were
bad along with the big horse flies so Bill had put a straw hat on Jimmy, cutting holes
for his ears to stick out, and an 'Old Chum' tobacco sack on each ear. It was hard for
us to control our laughter and speak politely to the old gentleman."
"Billy Frye was a World War I draft dodger. No one was quite sure which army he
was draft dodging - the Canadian or American - but he never got caught. He hid
out in a cabin by Secret Lake on the old railroad survey line and his neighbours used
to bring him groceries and sell his furs. If he saw you first out on a trail he ducked out
of sight."
"Bill Uren had a ranch near ours and played the violin for many of our backwoods
dances. He told us that he went over to Lillooet once and stayed in a hotel. He and
another person put half walnut shells on a cat's feet then he picked up his violin and
they turned the cat loose. It tap danced all the way down the hall."
''Pete Heller was supposed to be a teller of tall tales. One of them being about Pete's
tame black bear. He said one time when the berries were ripe he rode his bear out to
the berry patch. While he picked, the bear ate his fill of berries. When it was time to

52

go home Pete jumped on his bear and had one helluva time to get it to go home. But
finally he made it, and there in the yard was his tame bear!"
Jack Walters has also shared his memories. Like the time he and Johnny Burke were
down at the Perry Ranch looking after 350 yearlings and they had to go out on a trail
ride:
"The day before another cowboy had killed a rattlesnake and hung it on some brush
right in the centre of the.trail. Johnny and I were riding up the trail-he was ahead
- and he turned in the saddle to say something to me when I saw this snake hanging
just ahead ofh:im. Johnny was really scared of snakes. I yelled, 'Look Out!' but when
he turned to look ahead the dead snake, hanging by its tail, was only two feet in front
of his face. He threw his head sideways and ducked. He was so shook up he wouldn't
get off his horse for the rest of the day. He even stayed on the horse to have a pee,
which is pretty difficult to do."
Jack would never forget a day in 1926 when he accompanied his dad for the first time
taking out some hunters. He was twelve years old. His horse didn't have a saddle and
since he had no scabbard to hold his 30:30 rifle his dad put Jack's gun in a scabbard
on his horse. Just before leaving home Jack inserted three bullets into the gun.
Unknown to him his dad loaded in two more shells. During the day Jack did not fire
a shot. When they returned that evening he ejected three shells from the gun and carried
it into the house. While the guests were in the front room talking and his mother was
in the kitchen making supper, Jack playfully took aim at a coal oil lamp sitting on the
kitchen window sill, cocked what he thought was an empty gun, and pulled the trigger.
There was a terrific explosion and the noise of breaking glass. The light went out.
Dora thought she had been shot. Bud and the hunters ran in from the front room and
the guests started yelling at Jack. But his dad intervened, saying "Don't blame Jack.
It was not his fault. It was my fault. He thought the gun was empty. He didn't know
I had put in two inore shells." Jack never forgot that incident. From that day on he
made absolutely sure his gun was empty before he brought it into a house.
One day in 1939 Jack and his dad were sitting out on their front porch when a covered
wagon came by. There were two women on the seat and a rider on horseback trailing
behind. He introduced himself by saying, "I guess you don't know me. My name is
Charlie Morrow. I have come back to find my father's gold mine."
53

Sometime before the First World War a widower from Montana named Morrow
lived in a lonely shack up Criss Creek, a tributary of the Deadman, not too many miles
from the Walters ranch. His two young boys lived with him. He had discovered gold.
According to old timers he would ride down into Savona from time to time, get
groceries, and visit the Lakeview Hotel bar while his boys would stay in a tent over on
the north side ofKamloops Lake. One evening after leaving the bar Morrow took a
shortcut down the railway track to his tent but decided to lay down and rest on the
track, using a sack of flour for a pillow. He was killed bya train. The next day Savona
people sifted through bloody flour for bits of his gold.
He was buried in an unmarked grave overlooking the lake at Savona next to another
unmarked grave, that ofFrancois Savona who named the town. His two boys were sent
to the Cariboo to stay with an uncle. Following Morrow's death several men from
Savona rode up Criss Creek and found what they believed was Morrow's cabin. It had
one bunk on one side and two bunks on the other side, presumably for the boys. The
building was on the fork of a creek that flowed into Criss Creek One of the searchers
found a rusted gold pan and a shovel beside the stream, but several tests with the pan
did not produce one flake of gold. A few years later the cabin burned in a forest fire.
The covered wagon with the two women, and Charle Morrow on horseback,
proceeded up Deadman' s Creek but returned later and went up Criss Creek.
Charlie squatted for the next two years in an empty shack six miles up Criss Creek
unsuccessfully looking for his dad's gold mine. Eventually he came to work for Bud
Walters as a guide taking fishermen into Hihiume, and later moved down Deadman's
Creek to a two-room cabin on the T-Bar Ranch where he lived for the rest of his life.
He never found his father's gold mine.
Another one ofBud Walters' neighbours was Jerry Swim who came from Washington
state. He had worked off and on for Bud Walters but in May, 1942, he was working
for someone else as shepherd in the Upper Deadman when he came across a big black
bear in the act of slaughtering a ewe. He had no gun. Swim had never taken out
Canadian citizenship and was considered an alien when Canada declared war in 1939.
He was ordered to turn in his rifle. Not having a fireann he picked up a club and
proceeded to dispose of the bear stone-age fashion.

54

A front page story :in the "Kamloops Sent:inel" described how Swim clouted the bear
over its head and nose several times in order to make it let go of the sheep. But the
bear hung on, not even making any attempt to defend itself against the man. F:inally
Jerry delivered a real hard blow to Mr. Bruin's beezer and this appeared to hurt for he
let go of the ewe, took to his heels, and disappeared to the woods :in a cloud of alkali
dust.
Fred Dexheimer was another old timer who lived above the Walters' ranch. He was
a grey haired man with a moustache who came from Colorado, talked slowly, but
didn't say much about his past. He was well liked, trapped for a living, and over the
years occupied several different homesteads, including one at Last Chance Creek One
of his pastimes was prospect:ing.
One day in the summer of 1930 he discovered a gold bear:ing ve:in beside Vidette Lake
n:ineteen miles upstream from the Walter's ranch. Percy Wilson, , who also lived
up the valley, stopped in at the Walters' ranch to tell Bud and Dora that he was on his
way down to the Ashcroft court house to file Dexheimer' s claim.
Dexheimer's discovery changed the lives of many people :including the Walters.
A white haired geologist named D .B. Sterret, an immigrant from Pennsylvania, bought
Dexheimer' s claim then acquired additional titles from other prospectors who had
staked the area. He formed a company :in 1932 called Vidette Mines Ltd, freighted in
equipment, sank a shaft, and started a urine. The company began trucking out
concentrates to the railway at Savona :in 1934 and before it closed in 1940 it had
blasted five miles of tunnels in four levels, provided employment for over a hundred
people, and shipped out 28,000 ounces of gold.
Initially the road to the mine started at Tobacco Flats, two miles up from the Walters'
ranch, then climbed an extremely steep hill known as Bayne' s Grade. Jack Walters
helped move :in some of the equipment.
''I hauled the ball mill :in on orie trip. The linings on two trips. I hauled them from our
ranch. The road from the top of Baynes' Grade to the m:ine was 25 miles. After that
I hauled :in general freight and groceries that w:inter. The freight came to the foot of the
hill by truck. I made one trip from our ranch to the mine when it was fifty below zero.
Everybody thought I was crazy. I tied the lines to the front of the sleigh and ran behind

55

all the groceries including crates of oranges were frozen solid."

Bud and Dora's son, Doug, got a job working underground at the new mine and stayed
with it until the operation closed in 1940. When the company decided to bulldoze a
shorter lower route into the mine straight up Deadman's canyon, Bud and Jack
surveyed the route. Later Jack worked for a short time in the mine as a trammer,
pushing loaded rail carts of ore out of the mine and over to. the concentrator.
fu 1932 Vi and her sister Myrtle opened up a laundry high above the mine site in a
clearing in the forest that was nicknamed "shirttail alley", and stayed there seven
years. She described how her business began.
"I started my laundry near the mine about 1932. A man I knew who was doing some
surveying asked me if I would cook for him and two surveyors. I started cooking and
then two miners, Scotty Stuart and Wilson Barker, asked me if I would do their
washing for them. They said the lady that had been doing it was using too much lye
and was burning holes in their woollen underwear."
"I told them I didn't have any money to start anything. So they advanced me two pay
cheques so I could buy a used tent and some used dishes and some food. Their pay
cheques were $72 each. They took it out in board as they wanted to get out of the
camp cookhouse for the summer. I got my sister Mert to come up and help. That's
how I got started."
"Mert did the cooking and ironing, and I did the rub' n1b' rub' washing by hand on a
scrub board and packing water by hand from a little stream and heating it on the back
of the stove. At first Mert had three irons that you heat on the stove, but if the soot or
grease got on them it would always wind up on a white shirt - all dress shirts in those
days were white - so I'd have to wash them all over again. Pretty soon I was able to
get a gas-iron for Mert."

"It was not long before we got a bigger tent - 12 x 16. Someone had started to build
a cabin out of logs but quit when the walls were about five feet high. It was just the
right size for our new tent. We brought the tent walls over the log frame leaving the
logs inside. Then we put a 'fly' over the tent. As the snow fell and melted the water
ran down the outside and froze, making the tent windproof on the sides. Snow was
banked around the bottom. And with a heater at one end and a cookstove at the other,
56

it was warm enough that I wouldn't mind doing it again! We worked frmn 6 a.m. to
6 p.m. and were very happy."
"Later we got water piped into our cabin from a stream and I got a water jacket put in
my stove and had a hot water tank."
"I bought a washing machine that first winter. It came from Kamloops - can't
remember the make - it ran on gasoline. It was a godsend. The day it came into
camp, in a little trailer towed behind the stage, just about everybody was out there to
look at my new washer."
"The next summer my dad came to the camp with a little sawmill and gave me all the
cull hunber. Mert and I replaced the tent with wooden walls and a roof. The Tenford
boys showed us how to cut rafters and nail on the boards."
"We also did dry cleaning. Mert and I carried many four gallon cans of white gasoline
up that steep switchback road from the 1nine to our cabin for dry cleaning. When I
cleaned suits in gas about all I did w~s put the whole suit in the can of gas, working the
suit up and down gently, and hung it up in the fresh air until practically all the gas odom
-was gone."
"'When I left Vidette in 1939 I gave the washer to my mother. And my sisters used it
for a long time afterwards to wash sheets for the hunting parties that stayed at the
ranch."
"Second only to the days that I lived at the Circle W Ranch, my favourite place was my
seven years spent at Vidette."

57

Chapter 15
When Bud Walters learned that two work horses that he had turned loose to graze had
wandered across to the Baker ranch he asked June to ride over and bring them home.
The Baker ranch was at Loon Lake forty miles away. She got up at three o'clock the
next morning, made a lunch, saddled her horse, and started up the twenty mile road to
Vidette. It was daylight when she left the Vidette road and started up the old cattle trail
which wandered another twenty miles through the forest to the Baker ranch. The trail
hadn't been used to herd cattle for years and was criss crossed by windfalls.
She stayed only long enough at the ranch to pick up the two horses then started back.
But it was slow going. The big animals found it difficult getting around some of the big
windfalls that June and her pony had jumped over on the way up. By the time she
arrived back at Vidette the sun had set and she thought of staying overnight but decided
to continue on because the twenty miles home. was no longer a trail but a road. The
road was now dark now and she could see only the outline of the hills ahead. The two
big horses were tired. Twelve miles from home they refused to go any further, veered
off the road, and disappeared down the embankment. June followed them down to the
creek but it was too dark to see them, but she could hear them. She lit matches to find
her way and got the horses back up to the road. The last twelve miles were taken very
slowly and it was seven o'clock in the morning before the Walters ranch house came
into view.
She had been in the saddle for twenty-seven hours, had eaten nothing except the little
lunch she had packed, but her eighty mile trip was considered uneventful.
While June's trip was tiring, working with horses could also be dangerous.
In one of his letters home in 1905 Bud commented to his father that "a boy by the name

of Paul Ryckman and myself took a hunting trip in the Rocky Mountains. We had a
fine time and got four bear and one elk - but he got killed afterwards by a horse."
Bud Walters himself spent eighteen weeks in the Kamloops hospital in 1905 after an
encounter with a stallion in a corral at the Douglas Lake Ranch. And thirty years later
his fourteen year old daughter June l~y unconscious for six days when her horse fell
with her.

58

During the nineteen twenties and thirties The "Kamloops Sentinel" recorded many
accounts of men being injured and killed by horses in the Deadman' s Creek area.
In June, 1927, Indians on Uren Mountain were rounding up a hundred or more of their
horses to sell to the Russians when Jim Antoine, their chief, was thrown to the ground
when his horse stumbled. The horse fell on him, breaking his left leg. The leather on
Antoine's old saddle had worn away over the years and the metal pommel jammed into
his broken leg and held. The horse got to his feet with the chiefs leg in the air.
To free himself Antoine reached for his knife and cut his leg loose.
Jack Christian was near the corral when the accident happened and helped make a
stretcher to carry Antoine down the mountain. But when the men began to carry him
the chief ordered them to set him down and not move him. They obeyed their chief.
He lay out all night in heavy rain, bleeding, and covered only by a blanket.
At
daybreak Jack, who was the only non-Indian present, told the others that if Antoine
wasn't taken to hospital he would die. So they picked up the stretcher, carried him four
miles down the mountain to a wagon, got him to Savona, and put him in the baggage
car of a Canadian Pacific passenger train. But gangrene had set in.
At Kamloops doctors amputated his leg twice, once lower down, then near the hip.
However the terrible shock, the loss of blood, and the amputations were too much for
him and he died.
On October 3, 1932, a news item in the "Kamloops Sentinel" reported that a coroner
and police constable went to Boule's ranch on the north Bonaparte to investigate the
circmnstances attending the death of Joe Rhinehart. The short article stated that
Rhinehart was riding a partly broken horse and leading a wild one, while rounding up
a bunch ofhorses at Boule's ranch. When a search party found his body is was
surmised that his saddle horse fell and threw its rider into some rocks.
W.T. Douglass of Seven Lakes near Copper Creek had a similar accident when his
horse shied and threw him against a boulder. Fortunately he was not killed but he did
suffer internal injuries. Jim Camille, a popular and well known Deadman's Creek
cowboy, suffered a broken leg when his horse fell with him. Charlie Threlkeld, who
had first aid training, drove him to hospital.

59

On August 30, 1935, the "Kamloops Sentinel" reported that "Able Sam of the
Deadman's Creek Indian band was thrown by his horse while leading another and
suffered a broken pelvis. He had to crawl a long way before he was able to attract
attention and get help, and even then, owing to the rough and broken nature of the
country, he had to be put on a saddle horse to be taken home before being driven to the
Royal Inland Hospital." Another accident occurred during the spring roundup of cattle
near Criss Creek in 1944 when W.O. Avery of Upper Deadman's Creek received
concussion when his horse fell on a rocky trail.
Being kicked by a horse was also common but not usually fatal. In the spring of 1933
Bill Uren, a neighbour of Bud Walters, injured his back while working at his sawmill.
He managed to get down to Charlie Threlkeld who drove him to Kamloops for medical
attention. While passing a ranch en route, Threlkeld stopped to examine a horse out
in someone's fie~d, and the horse resenting Charlie's attention, launched out with its
front feet striking Threlkeld, breaking one of his feet. The two injured men continued
to Kamloops where Uren's back was examined and Charlie's foot was put in a cast.

In the spring of 1940 Cliff Tuson of the Copper Creek valley was severely injured
when he was kicked in the abdomen while handling an unbroken horse. A neighbour
drove him in the back of a wagon down to the Canadian National station at Copper
Creek where he was placed aboard a caboose on an eastbound freight train. Five years
later Cliff met with another accident when his horse slipped on an icy trail and threw
him off, knocking him unconscious. He saw a doctor later who told him to stay off a
horse for at least a month.
Jack Christian narrowly escaped injury a few months later when he was severely
kicked by a horse. The newspaper said his pocket watch, which was completely
smashed, gave some protection from the flying hoofs. When Jack McAbee of
W alhachin was kicked in the face, the horse knocked out several teeth, :fractured his
jaw and broke his nose. Bleeding and sore, Jack caught the 2:15 train to Ashcroft,
visited a doctor, and returned home on the 5 o'clock train. Jack was tough.
Joe York of Ashcroft wasn't as fortunate when he got kicked. On April 5, 1944, the
local newspaper reported that "Joe York, a Chinaman in his sixtieth year, passed away
in Ashcroft hospital after suffering serious head and face injuries as a result of a kick
from a horse at Boston Flat Ranch. It is said that York went to the barn to let the
horses out and an hour or so later another Chinaman missed York and went. to

60

investigate. He found the man lying on the barn floor unconscious and immediately
summoned aid and had him removed to hospital. No one witnessed the accident and
it is not know which horse kicked him."

An accident killed a good friend and neighbour of the Walters family on Sunday,
August 1, 1943, when Ernest Matier and several others were rounding up horses on the
mountain above his father's ranch. According to his brother, Herb Matier, Ernie's
horse stumbled and threw him head first to the ground. He was found unconscious
shortly after by other cowboys, his horse standing nearby. Help was summoned from
the ranch and he was carried five miles down the mountain by six men in an improvised
stretcher. A doctor who happened to be at the Walters ranch as part of an eight-man
fishing party, did what he could before Matier was rushed forty miles to Kamloops in
the back of a pickup truck. He died without regaining consciousness before reaching
hospital. He was 32 years old and left a wife and three young children.
Although infrequent, another danger with horses were runaways.
A good friend of Dorothea Walters was Fanny Faucault who lived at Walhachin. An
accomplished pianist, she was best known for playing the Weber grand piano at the
W alhachin dances. Jack Christian remembered her as being "the only woman I know
who could roll a cigarette on her thigh." Fanny's first husband, a man named Felker,
was killed by a runaway team in the Cariboo.
Over at Copper Creek in 1936 the newspaper reported that "Miss M. Tuson of the
Copper Creek valley is slowly recovering from painful injuries received when the
horses pulling the wagon in which she was riding frightened and bolted. Cliff Tuson
who was driving the team was also injured and the wagon was practically demolished."
That same year the paper also told of a team taking flight at Savona - "An
unfortunate accident occurred Tuesday morning when a team with a wagon load of
furniture took fright and ran away, spilling the load along the road for half a mile. The
team belonged to Fred Morris and was being used to haul furniture and household
belongings of Joe Minnabarriet who is leaving for Spences Bridge."
In this case the animals that bolted were not horses but two mules.

61

Chapter 16

In 1873, seven years before Bud Walters was born, a brilliant British physicist named
James Clerk Maxwell published a treatise called "Electricity and Magnetism" in which
he theorized there were electromagnetic waves in space. Fourteen years later his
theory was proven correct by a German scientist, Heinrich Hertz, who produced radio
waves in a laboratory and created the world's first radio receiver. Hertz did not
expand on his discovery but during the next thirty years others experimented with radio
waves and began broadcasting and receiving wireless transmissions.

In 1901 the Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi set up a transmitter on Signal Hill near
St. John's, Newfoundland, and sent the first wireless signals across the Atlantic in
morse code. On Christmas Eve, 1906, the first known radio program in the United
States was broadcast by R.A. Fessenden from his experimental station at Brant Rock,
Massachuetts. He read a poem, gave a short talk, and played two musical selections
which were heard by wireless operators aboard ships several htmdred miles away.
Other amateur broadcasters began transmitting impromptu concerts to each other using
records and live music played by their friends and neighbours. They used homemade
equipment with a range of only a few miles but their little performances, broadcast over
very small areas in the eastern United States, created a demand by the general public
for factory made radio receivers so they too could listen in on these amateur shows.
In the fall of 1920 workmen employed by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company of East Pittsburgh erected a radio transmission tower on a hill in Butler
County fifteen miles north of the farm where Bud Walters was born. From this t~er
in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, the first scheduled radio programme in the world was
broadcast on the evening of November 2, 1920. A man speaking on radio station
KDKA told his listeners that Warren Harding had just been elected president of the
United States.
By 1926 there were radio stations in many parts of the world including three in
Vancouver. A shop at 791 Duns1nuir Street called Radio Specialties Limited was
probably the first store in British Columbia to sell radios. In January, 1924, it
advertised a Westinghouse Long Distance "RC" radio set for $160. 00 which came
with three dry cell batteries, earphones, and an aerial. A loudspeaker was $20 extra.
The store claimed that the set had been able to pick up Aberdeen, Scotland, and
London, England.
62 !

In 1926 the giant Canadian mail order department store, Eaton's, advertised radios for
the first time in their fall and winter catalogue. They displayed a set called a Minerva
that featured five tubes, two 45 volt "B" batteries, one 80 amp storage battery, one pair
of headphones, and an aerial complete with lightning arrester. They also included a log
book to keep track of stations picked up. Their price was $90 or about a month's
wages.
Bud Walters bought one.
He also bought an extra pair of headphones. His radio was probably the first one to
be heard on Deadman' s Creek.
June remembers her dad twirling the dials, fitting earphones over her head, and letting
her listen to voices and music coming through static a long way off. For the Walters
family, who had no telephone, no newspaper, and who picked up their mail at Savona
infrequently, their radio was a tremendous source of news and entertainment.
On Sunday, October 14, 1926, the first radio station in the interior of British Columbia
went on the air at Kamloops. Owned by hardware merchant N.S. Dalgleish, CFJC
with a power of only 15 watts could be heard as far away as Barkerville, Vancouver,
and San Francisco. Its signal came in clearly at the Walters ranch.
At first the Kamloops station broadcast only once a week every Wednesday evening.
The weekly broadcasts started at 7 :00 p.m. with bedtime stories for children followed
by stock and bond reports and news items furnished by the Kamloops Sentinel. Then
came an hour or two of music and recitations created by local citizens right in the
studio. The three-hour broadcasts ended at 10:00 p.m. with the playing of"God Save
The King."

In those early days of Canadian radio the stations were prohibited by law from
broadcasting recorded music, so every sound that came over CFJC was created live in
the studio. Listeners were invited to come upstairs above the hardware store and play
their musical instruments, make recitations, and sing songs. It was very infonnal.
Some sixty years later a white haired lady recalled how she and her young girlfriend
went into studio where she sang and her friend played the piano. After they finished
they waited until the announcet began speaking into tl1e microphone then played tricks
on him- like tying his shoe laces together.
On April 22, 1927, the "Kamloops Sentinel" reported -

63

"Another program of old-

time music was broadcasted over CFJC the local radio station on Wednesday evening.
Barney Wilson, old-time fiddler, with Harry Campbell accompanying at the piano,
played the old-time dance munbers as they should be played. These two talented
musicians used to play together for the dances in Kamloops some thirty years ago.
Paddy Gilmore appeared over radio again with humorous dialect recitations, and
Jimmie Thompson of tin whistle fame produced music from a 15-cent instrument that
would put a saxophone to shame."

In 1927 the station was taken over by the ''Kamloops Sentinel" which was the largest
newspaper published between Vancouver and Calgary. Radio transmissions became
more frequent and the newspaper, which employed seventy news gatherers in villages
within a hundred mile radius ofKamloops, broadcast much of their local news over the
air waves. Bud Walters and his family, listening through their earphones, had the
opportunity to hear local trivia such as:
"April 23, 1929 - The first dance of the year was recently held in the Copper Creek
school house. Mrs. Fouquet and Mrs. Klemovitchhad charge of tasty things, while the
rock gang and steam shovel people kept the ball rolling. It is rumoured that another
event of similar nature is brewing-with no brew!"
"March 4, 1930 - Mrs. Charles Threlkeld of T Bar ranch has been admitted to the
Royal Inland Hospital where she will lmdergo an operation for goitre."
"March 27, 1931 - The first airplane to land at Walhachin, piloted by H. 0. Madden and
accompanied by his mechanic, J. Bertalino, arrived in Walhachin last Sunday.
Although their arrival was unannounced, there was a fair turnout to have their first
experience in tlle air. After most oftl1e afternoon spent in flight, Mr. Madden and Mr.
Bertaino took off for Kamloops after promising to return if possible in the near future.
"May 29, 1931 - A young man by the name of Jack Wilson appeared before Magistrate
A.E. Meighen in Kamloops on Wednesday morning on the charge of creating a
disturbance in the Europe Cafe by swearing. He was found guilty and sentenced to
five days in jail."
"June 5, 1933 - The Shell Oil painting crew were in Savona recently and gave Mr.
Styer's store a new coat of paint."

64

"July 31, 1934 - Jerry Christie, of the former Ashcroft family so well known throughout
the district, is staying for a month or more with his wife and family at the Walters
fishing resort on Upper Deadman' s Creek."
Stories of a more serious nature that came over CFJC told of men getting maimed and
killed along the railway while riding freight trains. It was not uncommon for a hundred
or even a hundred and fifty men, and some women, to be on a single freight train
passing through Savona, all desperately looking for work. Some died when they
missed the handrails of moving freight cars. Others fell asleep on top of boxcars and
rolled off. Some slipped under the moving wheels when alighting. One badly
mangled man was found by a railway worker beside the rails at Thompson Siding,
thirteen miles west of Spences Bridge. The section-man ran back for help but when he
returned with a track car he found the injured man had rolled on to the main line where
a second train had cut him in two.
On June 11, 1935, a transient was stealing a ride through Kamloops in an empty
baggage car and peered round the doorway to see why the train had stopped just as the
switch engine connected with another string of cars. The jolt closed the door, which
was mounted on roller bearings, and crushed his head before he could duck inside.
Death was instantaneous. The transient, whose packsack was made from an old piece
of carpet, was a poorly dressed boy from Coquitlam who was returning home to his
mother. He was fourteen.
When he heard these stories Bud Walters must have thought of those days back in 1894
when at age fourteen he climbed on a boxcar and rode a series of freight trains from
Pennsylvania to Texas.
Other local news items reported that the W alliachin water tank burned down, that the
fall round-up of horses in the Copper Creek hills had begun, and that the city of
Kamloops had passed a by-law making it legal for men to wear topless bath trunks but they must have a three-inch leg. A homeless man in Kamloops was given a
suspended sentence for begging on the public street without being in possession of a
certificate signed by a minister of the gospel, and was ordered to leave town.
A Canadian Pacific freight train was delayed at W alliachin by tumbleweed which
bunched on the track and greased the rails as the train tried to pass through it. A
doukhobor at Vernon was sent to jail for life for damaging a government bridge. And
65

King George V decreed that two minutes silence would be observed throughout the
British Commonwealth at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1935. During those two minutes
every vehicle in the city ofKamloops was required to come to a halt.
In international news during the 1930's the Walters learned that the "Queen Mary" set
sail on its maiden voyage from England to New York, Franklin Roosevelt was elected
president of the United States, and King Edward the Eighth abdicated the throne to
marry Wallace Warfield Simpson. Down at Walhachin several residents reported
picking up Rome, Italy, very clearly and hearing black shirted facists singing and
marching through the city.
With the onset of the Depression in 1929 not every household could afford a radio nor
the cost of batteries to operate it. People like the Walters who were fortunate enough
to own one found themselves visited more frequently by neighbours hungry for news
from the outside world. When Max Baer fought Joe Louis in a heavy weight boxing
match in 1934 Savona store owner Tom Edwards carried his radio from his house
over to the store so men could gather round and listen to the prize fight.
Radios were still such a rarity in the 1930's, particularly out in the hills, that to buy one
made news. On December 9, 1930, the "Kamloops Sentinel" told its readers that
"A.F. Winter of Criss Creek was the happy recipient of a pre-Christmas box in the form
of a radio which will bring the outside world nearer to another ranch home." Thirteen
months later the paper reported that section foreman Clarence Wilson of Copper Creek
had bought a new radio, "adding enjoyment to the Wilson family." And at the end of
December, 1932, readers learned that "S.J. Brown is the man of the hour these days
at the Douglass ranch out of Copper Creek, his new radio being the centre of
attraction."

As technology improved radios became more common. Broadcasting stations were

connected to networks and radios no longer required headphones. Hockey Night in
Canada, Fibber McGee and Molly and Lux Radio Theatre were now heard up
Deadman's Creek. Vi Walters remembers that radio reception was very good when
she and her sister moved to the Vidette mining camp in the early 1930's. "We all
listened to Jack Benny on Sunday evenings and to Fred Allen on Wednesday nights.
The barbs they threw at each other were really comical. We also listened to a program
from Shreveport, Louisiana; cowboy music from Tennessee and Calgary; and 'Amos
and Andy' with their friend 'Kingfish- negro comedy."

66

. i<

Back in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in 1937, the world's first broadcasting station
built a huge 718-foot antenna tower at Saxonburg, close to Bud Walters' birthplace.
At the base of the tower an engineering item called a "Spider Coil" - a copper coil 83
feet long from end to end-was created to allow a smooth path for the 50,000 watt
signal to the world. It has been said that through this coil passed the voices of kings,
queens, United States presidents, the cries of disaster, the music of the symphony, the
cannon of war, major news events and the laughter of children.
To protect the coil against the weather a small octagonal building about six feet high
containing a door and a little window was built to enclose it. It was nicknamed the
"Doghouse." In 1940 the transmitting plant was moved to another location but the
Doghouse remained behind. It was placed on the private property of a couple named
Elvyn and Pearl Sollie where for the next 62 years it was used as a playhouse for their
children and their grandchildren.
In 1993 the Sollies sold their property, including the Doghouse, and in 2002 the new
owner realizing the historical significance of the little building donated it to the
Saxonburg Museum. In a formal ceremony on the museum grounds on June 28, 2003,
which included.a band, special guests, a troop of Boy Scouts, and several speakers,
the refurbished building together with a plaque commemorating this relic of the golden
age of broadcasting was unveiled by the woman who donated it.
Her name was Pamela H. Walters.
When contacted by telephone Mrs. Walters, a Saxonburg lawyer, was unable to
confirm whether or not she is related to the boy from Butler County who became a
cowboy and pioneer at Deadman' s Creek. But she probably is.

67

Chapter 17
Dances were the other great form of entertainment around Deadman' s Creek in the
1930's. People danced in homes, in school houses, in the Red Lake forestry station,
and in halls at Savona, W alhachin, and Clinton.
One of the legacies left behind by the English settlers at Walhachin was their dance hall
and a Weber grand piano. Many happy times were held in this hall before the arrival
of television, the most famous being their annual Easter dances. They were always
held on a Monday because the Lord's Day Act made it illegal to carry on a public
dance past midnight on a Saturday. But many other dances were also held there during
the year. Jack Walters recalls he used to borrow his dad's 1928 flat deck truck which
had wooden stake sides and carry twenty-five people from Savona to the Walhachin
dances seven miles away.

It was not uncommon for a fight to break out after a dance. One night when Jack
Christian was pulling away from the Walhachin dance hall with a pickup truck
loaded with people heading for Savona, two angry men beganjabbing at each other
in front oflris headlights. Jack couldn't get by them. He waited as long as he could
then lost Iris patience. Jack was six foot seven and possessed a good natured
disposition but he wanted to get home. Uttering a few profanities he opened the
truck door, climbed out, placed one huge hand on each of their necks and flung them
both off the road. Then he got back in Iris truck and drove away.
In the fall of 1931 a dozen men - the surveyors and the diamond drillers who
established the Vidette Gold Mine nineteen miles up past the Walters ranch - were
living in canvas tents under the trees by Vidette Lake. During the days they
laboured sinking test shafts, examining samples from diamond drill holes, and
erecting a small treatment plant for the recovery of gold. During the evenings they
formed a social club and organized the "First Annual Vidette Dance."

Notices were tacked up at the Savona post office and at the Copper Creek store
stating that the dance would be held in the ranger station at Criss Creek. The road
from the railroad at Copper Creek to the mine, which passed by the Criss Creek
ranger station had been improved to allow trucks to bring in machinery and supplies.
But its great mud holes, protruding roots, and fallen trees remained a challenge to
party goers who carried crosscut saws, axes, and shovels along with their suitcases

68

stuffed with suits, white shirts and ties.

On the night of the dance it rained but that did not dampen the party which was
judged a success. The Second Annual Vidette Dance was held the following
spring, this time in the new school house. One June 8, 1932, the "Kamloops
Sentinel" reported that "The Vidette gold urine's second annual dance was held at
Red Lake Saturday evening last, with an attendance of around 50. The weather
treated them about as roughly as last time, there being rain and wind in all
directions. Despite this is reported they had a most enjoyable time and fine music
for the affair."
The Vidette dancers ignored the Lord's Day Act and danced through to Sunday
morning daylight. Music for these dances out in the hills was provided by the party
goers themselves, usually on a guitar, fiddle and banjo, with sometimes a mandolin
thrown in.
On October 27, 1933, the "Kamloops Sentinel" stated that "The Third Annual
Vidette Dance was given on Saturday at the Vidette gold mine in their new
cookhouse, attended by many local and outside people who enjoyed a simply
wonderful evening. Music was supplied by a Kamloops orchestra and several plays
were put on by the boys employed in the mine during the intervals of the dancing.
Unfortunately the weather was not as favorable for the return of the guests on
Sunday as their trip in to the mine had been on Saturday, as there was a very heavy
snowfall and several cars were in trouble. But even so, it was a most enjoyable and
unusual experience for most of the guests."
Joyce McLeod was a young woman who lived at Savona when she and a girlfriend
went forty miles up Deadman' s Creek to that dance with a blue eyed red headed
dare devil named Ralph Lidstone.
"It was some dance! It snowed pretty deep after we got to Vidette and what a ride
we had back home to Savona! It took all day! At the top of one steep hill Ralph cut
down a small tree, tied it behind the car, and my girlfriend and I rode it down the hill
to help brake the car. It sure was cold but I had a big overcoat on and it was a lot

of fun!"
Vi Walters remembered those dances that were held in the cookhouse at the Vidette

69

nune. One was even held in the mine' s truck garage.

"We danced waltzes, the two-step, circle-one-step, heel and toe polka, military
schottisches, and fox trot - or belly warble as some called it."
"In our dancing days a couple never spent the whole time together, even if they
were engaged. You never danced twice in a row with one partner. If there was an

announcer he'd make sure everybody got a chance to dance. There would be circle
one steps, all join hands, then ladies on the inside, gents on the out, ladies go left
gents go right, every man dance with the girl in front of you. There was 'ladies'
choice,' 'tag waltzes,' 'gents dance with the girl behind you.' Around midnight
sandwiches, cake, and coffee were served. Just before the dance was over an
announcement was made that 'the next dance will be the home waltz.' They were
sad words if it was only three o'clock in the morning and everybody was having fun.
But usually our Vidette dances lasted until day break."
Jack Walters remembers one Vidette dance that was held in the upper floor of the
bunkhouse. Cots were set aside and three Tenford brothers who worked at the mine
- Carl, Bret and Harry - provided the music which was judged first-rate. Carl
was on a fiddle, Bret played a guitar, and Harry had an auto harp. Many guests had
driven up from Savona bringing cases of beer. In those days bottled beer was
packaged in flat boxes, twelve to a box, and the collective contributions of the
guests made an impressive stack at one end of the room.
One quiet miner who had never been in charge of anything in his life got drunk early
and decided he was going to be in charge of the beer. He sat on top of the stacked
cases and defied anyone to come and get a drink. He reinforced his defiance by
waving a loaded revolver at the crowd. He found it in the mine manager's locker.
Mr. Sterrett, the white haired mine manger who was so unassuming that at times he
almost appeared bashful, cooly approached the intoxicated celebrant and by
alternatively using threats and persuasion got the pistol. He carried it outside and
flung it as far as he could out into Vidette Lake. The miner, pleased with his fifteen
minutes of fame, passed out with a smile on his face, was gently covered with a
blanket in a comer of the room, and the dance resumed until daylight. The miner's
drama added to the evening's entertainment.
Although Bud Walters was not fond of dancing he apparently attended dances when
.70'

he was a cowboy in the United States. He told his family about the time he and a
few other cowboys were going to a dance when they came to a gate in the road.
One man got down to open the gate and felt himself struck by a rattlesnake. He was
wearing chaps which prevented the bite from piercing his leg but the fangs lodged in
his chaps. In those days men danced with their chaps and spurs on. During the
dance the rattler's fangs worked their way through the cowboy's chaps to his skin.
He didn't die but he got quite sick.
The Walters' ranch house with its removable partitions was the venue of many
dance parties and on November 26, 1935, the "Kamloops Sentinel" reported,
"a large number from Walhachin and Anglesey attended the dance at Bud Walters'
ranch in aid of the Deadman' s Creek school. Everybody reports a good time.
According to estimates the dance was well attended, over a hundred being present."
June doubts whether there were a hundred people in the house but it was pretty
crowded. The music was provided by her brother Jack on guitar, Tish Scott on
violin, and Claude Scott on banjo.
June also remembers the times she and her sisters Rita and Myrtle would ride their
horses 30 miles over two mountains to get to a dance at Red Lake that lasted until
daybreak. Then ride 30 miles home again next morning. Sometimes after the
dances ended and they were getting ready to leave the music would start up again.
So they would go back out on the floor wearing their spurs and chaps.
She also recalls the times she and her girl friend Maxine Cooper would travel to the
Clinton Ball north of Cache Creek. To get there they rode 20 miles up the road to
the Vidette mine, travelled another 20 miles through windfalls over an old cattle trail
to the Baker ranch at Loon Lake, then drove another 20 miles with two Baker
brothers in an old car to Clinton. The Clinton Balls were well lmown all over the
Cariboo and had been a big annual social event in Clinton since gold rush days.
Public dances, whether in the big Walhachin hall or in the little Red Lake ranger
station, were a wonderful way to spend an evening. People socialized, met old
friends, made new ones, and enjoyed the fun and music of the dance. But a new
invention was about to change their way of life - television.

In November, 1948, the first television station north of San Francisco and west of

71

the Mississippi went on in the air in Seattle. It was joined five years later by CBUT
in Vancouver that sent out its first test signal on December 1, 1953.
A year later power poles marched out from Kamloops bringing electricity to Savona
and Walhachin, television repeater stations appeared on interior mountain tops,
and public dances faded away. People preferred staying home to watch the Ed
Sullivan Show rather than riding a saddle horse to the Red Lake school house or
going in a pickup truck to the Walhachin hall where they qanced the night away.

72

; Chapter 18

In 193 3 Bud Walters moved his three-man sawmill from the ranch to the plateau above
the Vidette mine known as shirttail alley and put up a temporary tent next to Vi. He
added a small planer and an edger tothe mill, made :finished lumber, and built boats for
his tourist business which had now expanded to Bonaparte Lake.
As Vi explained,

"He opened up the surrounding country to the ever hungry tourist searching for new
hunting grounds and fishing lakes. He would just have to visit a lake once and go home
for his road building equipment - consisting mostly of sharp axes, crosscut saws,
cables, pulleys, blasting powder, and a team-. and without the aid of a surveyor, start
chopping his way through to a lake. As far as I remember he always came out where
he had intended to, whether it was five, ten or twenty miles from his starting point."
"He built the first cabins on the shores of Hihume Lake, hauling home-made boats and
lumber in by two-wheeled carts. He also opened up the Bare Lake, Heller Lake,
Bonaparte Lake, Babe Lake, Tingley Lake and Scotty Lake to the fishennen. At first
all this was done with pack horses, then teams, and lastly by a rough, tough truck road
with many bogs covered by corduroy."
"The longest road dad built was from Vidette to Bonaparte Lake. It was built in the
winter. My sister Rita was the cook. I gathered the wood and helped with the cleanup.
We only had one small tent. Slept on the ground and ducked rain drops if we happened
to bump the tent when it was raining. After cleanup we would put out the fire and go
out to help the road builders by clearing off the brush and lighter material we could
handle - as long as we didn't start laughing. Strange, but when you get over tired you
either laugh or cry!"
"I will have to guess at the length of that road, approximately 25 or 30 miles. There
were some long corduroys to construct. When we made it to Hammer Lake there were
only two 1niles of easy coasting down to the Bonaparte Lake from tl1ere."
"At Vidette for a while dad had his little tlrree-man sawmill set up about tlrree miles
from our tents. He was sawing lumber to take to the Bonaparte Lake for cabins and
home-made boats. He had his big logging team so he gave me cull lumber for my little
73

house. He and my brother Jack also supplied me with lots of firewood."

With lumber from his sawmill Bud built a long frame cabin at Bonaparte Lake and
another at Hammer Lake. The roads he built to these cabins were passable by trucks.
Through Bud Walters' efforts he put British Columbia on the map as a destination spot
for sports fishermen.
In 1945 he and Dora sold their ranch, moved their sawmill to Duck Range east of
Kamloops, acquired a timber limit, and began to cut and sell lumber. Both his sons,
Jack and Doug, worked with him. At the age of 65, when other men think about
retirement, Bud considered building a new fishing lodge up the North Thompson River
but the site he wanted was not for sale. The govermnent said it was reserving the spot
for returned soldiers. So he and Dora bought a house on two acres in the town of
Chase, some fifty miles east of Kamloops, where he got a job as a night watchman in
a sawmill.

It was while at Chase that Bud joined the Elks' Club. Roy Hilland and his wife
Margrett formerly worked for Bud at the Circle W. Roy was from Pennsylvania, and
like Bud, had worked his way through the midwestem states ,into Canada. They used
to have many chats together. One day he talked Bud into joining the Elks. On the
night of Bud's initiation in Kamloops Roy was playing the guitar when he suddenly
dropped dead from a heart attack.
Bud and Dora lived in Chase for several years but finally their daughters Rita and June
talked them into moving into Kamloops where Rita could keep an eye on them and do
their shopping.
Bud made only one trip back to Pennsylvania and that was in 1906. If he were to
return today to the place of his birth, he would still see com and oats and barley and
wheat growing on the rolling hills of Butler County just like they did when he was
there. Although they are gradually giving way to urban sprawl there are still some
1,200 farms operating in Butler County's 800 square miles. Many ofthe mulberry trees
he used to climb are also still there although like the farms they too are starting to
disappear.
Harness racing, a sport Bud's father enjoyed, is still a popular pursuit at the Butler
74

County fairgrounds. And the county still boasts that its annual farm show hosts the
largest rodeo east of the Mississippi. Bud would have liked that.
Buffalo Township in the southern part of Butler County, where Bud grew up, is still
a quiet peaceful place that in many ways hasn't changed that much since he was a boy.
It's population today is just under 7, 000 and only recently got its first traffic light.
Saint Paul's Methodist church is halfway through its second century and many of the
headstones in the cemetery behind it mark the resting places of Bud's kinfolk. Bull
Creek, where he used to go: .. fishing, still flows past the site of his grandfather's farm.
However the wooden railroad bridge that crossed Little Buffalo Creek has been
replaced by a cement culvert, and the railway itself- where Bud caught the freight
train to Texas - is gone, but its roadbed is still there. It is now a linear park for hikers
and cyclists.

If Bud were to return today to the Circle W Ranch - or Cultus Lake Ranch as he
. always called it - he would find many things the same. The house that he freighted
up from Walhachin in 1924 is still lived in, although it is now painted and maple trees
grow in front. The road to Hihmne Lake pretty closely follows his original trail and
the cabins he built at Hihume are still there. So are the old kerosene lamps, the
cookstoves and the wood burning heaters. Ron and Missy Bendzak: who now operate
the fishing lodge are proud to have as their guests the grandchildren of many of the
guests that Bud and Dora hosted so many years ago.
Looking back on her dad's life, Vi slUilliled it up by saying,
"He taught his children to be self reliant, to use their initiative, to be courageous. Dad
had more faith in our abilities than we had in ourselves. Some things were pretty scary
but we never let him know if we were nervous and we never let him down. He was a
good courage builder."
Bud passed away in 1969 at the age of 89. Dora died in 1977 at the age of 94.
They were outstanding pioneers of the Canadian west.

.75.

Clyde Brenton (Bud) Walters

1880 - 1969
A loving husband and father,
and a pioneer of the Canadian west

St Paul's Cemetery and

church, located on Route
3 56, Sarver, Buffalo
Township, Butler County,
Pennsylvania. This is
where Bud Walters'
parents are buried

Left: Bud's father, John Albert Walter and his

secondwife, the former Fina McBurney.
Photographed outside their home at 1029
Summit Street, Tatentum, Pennsylvania. He
died at his residence on April 8, 1940, aged 87.

Bud Walters made one trip back to Pennsylvania about 1906. He is

seen here astride one ofhis dad's trotting horses, 'Silver Hal.' Note
Bud's pistol on his hip

unrWalters;-second-frnm-left-,-en-the-platfefffi-ef-tH.e--CllR-Stati~n-a,.1r-- - -

Savona about 1926. On the left is Lillian Bradley, wife of the CPR
section foreman, and on the right are Florence Immel, school teacher at
M.amette Lake school, Nellie Watson, Sarah Watson, and Mrs. Chomat.

Bud Walters on Hihium Lake

This is the first motor boat about to be taken into Hihium Lake,
1929. Left to right, Douglas Christian, Jack Walters, and Bud
Walters. Bud built the two-wheel cart to carry material over
his narrow road to the lake .

Bud Walters throwing

a diamond hitch on old
Maggie about 193 2

'-

Clyde Brenton Walters on

his 85 11i birthday

Top picture, left to right:

Rita Walters, Mr. G.L Popp,
Vi Walters, Mrs. Popp,
Myrtle Walters, and June
Walters. Taken in the 193a1s.
The Popps were lodge guests.

Right:
Douglas Walters taken in 1940
at Vidette, and later as a soldier
with his second wife, Maple.

A couple of guests and their catch

THE CAR!HOO HIC.HWAY OVER JACK.ASS MOUN J A!N

IN THI:. FHASl:.H CANYON. B.C

After being closed for 40 years, the Fraser Canyon highway

was reopened in the fall of 1926. In many places it was
only ten feet wide. By the time this picture was taken small
r9ck guardrails were built

June Charlton (nee Walters) and her brother Jack revisited

their old home at the Circle W Ranch in the fall of 1996.
The place has been owned since 1981 by Ron and Missy
Bendzak who, like Bud Walters, came from the United States.

i
I

Left to right:
Jack Walters, Art Martel, and
Bud Walters. The Walters house
in the background was originally
built for English colonists at
. Walhachin who abandoned their
settlement in 1922. Walters had
the house dismantled and brought
here in 1924 following the loss by
fire of his original log home.

Vidette Mine employees visiting at

the Walters ranch. Wilson Barker,
standing, Ken Highland and Turk
Avison sitting, and Dora Walters
on porch.

.I ".
;"-

,_

' .

"'

~:;.
~I-

'

..,

Bud's older brotl

Guy Walters witl
his wife Dora am
their son Geoffre
at their Mound
Ranch at Clinton.
B.C. Coincidenta
both their wives
were named Don

Guy in a fashionable pair of wool chaps,

at left and below, in August, 1926. Guy
suffered a ruptured appendix a month
after this picture was taken and died en
route to hospital at Kamloops. He was
only 38 years old and was buried in Clinton.

The natural earthen moun

in the right of this picture
is what gave the Mound
Ranch its name.

This unidentified man is using a team and a scoop to

build the irrigation canal for the W alhachin fruit orchards
in the spring of 191 O_ It could be Bud Walters_

June Walters leading a party of fishermen up the zig zag trail from the Circle W Ranch
to Hihume Lake. At the lake the guests would be left on their own at one of four
cabins until it was time to go back up,~with dry ice for their fish,and bring them out.

Scenes from Hihume Lake

Taking a party of
three up the lake
to their cabin on
Duck Point. The
motor boat towed
the two rowboats.

Bud Walters built

four cabins on the
lake like this. This
is the home cabin.

. '1)) . 11;.J..lf:.
. ...~.
'

\..../. .. T~iA.

c. ._

j_L.>."
-i.

./'I

... ~:.~:_%..,:.. r
,-

Bob a:Il1d Henry

Sutherland in the
1930's with their
catch.

'I

Bud Walters, right, and a happy fisherman

Bud, left, his daughter Rita, and two guests

The same truck without its cab.

Doug Walters on running board,
with his three sisters, June, Vi
and Myrtle
Jack Walters and his
mother Dora

Jack Walters, left, and

Doug Christian hauling
logs to Bud's sawmill in
his home made logging
tmck and trailer

_4-~1. -

~~at-,%

"'I;,_

ftf~

l,.

""(

'".1..~,1.,,
Iii~~:., '

This is what happened

after Jack Walters, left,
and Doug Christian
stayed too long in the
Savona beer parlour.

"-<\'

Bud Walters, himself an experienced cowboy, taught all of his children

to ride at an early age.

'

1_

June Walters working with the

derrick horse piling hay, 1927.
She was only eight years old
June a few years later

Doug Walters on a work horse

Jack Walters with the rim

rock in the background

Myrtle Walters in front of the

family home. Note the old car.

Dorothea Walters stands

on her porch behind four
recently killed deei:

Richard Walters, Doug

Walters' son, stands
between his grandparents, Dorothea and
Bud. On the right is
Doug's wife and June
Walters

Bud. Walters, Doroth4

and their son Doug, ]

Pioneer B.c.J'~oupl~cP~~~k
golden wedding anniversa
A driver of the old Cariboo stage out of Ashci
for the famous RX. Stage company, and a native dat
ter.of Yale, _celebrated thefr golden wedding recenth
then home m Chase.
They are Mr. and Mrs. Bud
Walters, the latter .formerly
Dora Oppenheimer.
Mr. Walters, born in United
States in 1880,. came to. Canada.
in 1902 and to Ka,mloops district

Bud and Dora Walters

cutting the cake on their
soth wedding anniversay
June 10, 1957. They were
matried in Tacoma,
Washington.

ISaturdJ}' Eli~fuohd Wed.ding ri~y

For Mr. And Mrs: Bud Walters
:ivir: ai:d .llirs. Bud W~llers ~~ill
celebrale 60 yeais. of marriage
here on Saturday. .. ('/I#
'l111ey will be honored at .a
. family gathering and will be at
home to friends from 3 to 7 p.m.
at their residence Suite Bl, Glen
fair SubdiviSion. :
....._ .' .:
'Budman Walters and the former .Dora Oppenhiemer. of. Yale
were married' inu1Tacoma, June
10, .1907. At that time l\1r. Walters was a driver for the "old
Oariboo Stage out of Ashcroft
for the famous 'BX Stage Company, He came to Kainloops
first in 1905 and for a time broke
saddle horses fot Senator Bostock at Monte Creek and at
"Douglas Lake.
.
....
Mr. and 1\lrs. Walteis li~ed in
Wal!hachin, Savona and Deadman Creek area on the Circle W
ranch until 194B whe,n they moved to Duck Range. In 1951 they
moved to Chase and now make
their home in Kamloops.
1
I. l\1r. Walters was born in the

... 1

'.'

:: "":

United States 87 years ago and

came fo .Canada in 1902. . i\1rs.
Walters was born in Yale in
1884,. She attended All Hallows
schoGl and remem0rs in 1390
riding horseback :011 the old
Hope-Princeton trail which took
four days to. cover. Her father
went to Yale in 1858 in the gold
rush days and owned the first
store in the Fraser Canyon settlement.
"
Mr. and Ilks .. Walters have
four daug.hters and two sons,
11rs. G. <Rita) Burdett. of North
Kam1oops, Mrs. 1\1. Ci\lyrtle!
l\liller of Saturna Island, Mrs.
W. J. (June) Charlton of Pritchard, Mrs. 0. Stanyer of Victoriu.
Jack Wa:Jters of Princeton and
Douglas Walters of Salmo, They
have 16 grand childJ.'.en and 23
great grandchildren.

Dora was born

in Yale, B.C. in
1883, not 1884

three years later. They 1

married in Tacoma in 1907
His wife was born in 188
Yale, and attended All liaI
School. Her father came J
United States. in 1858 in
rush days ' and owne'd . the
store in, Yale. She remem
riding horseback over the
Hope trail to Allison ranch
Princeton, in 1890, taking'
days.
The couple: owned the Ct
Lake Ranch on Deadman Ci
from 1914 to 1946, and :
after a time w4en Mr. Wal
was doing sawmill work :
built a home at Chase. . '
At open house recently,
first family reunion. in 22 y1
was held. Attending. were 1
P. Stanyer Violet) '.of Durn
Mrs\ G. Burdett <Rita) of
vonna;. Mrs. G. Miller <MY!
of Pioneer Mine; Mrs. W,
Charlton (June) of Pritch1
Jack of Princeton; and Dou.
of Sahno. Ther~ are l4 gri
children and two great-gr1
children.

Bud Walters
advertising sign

Bud Walters, his son Jack and

daughter Vi, with his wife,
Dora on the horse. About 1925.

Jack Walters

In 1926 Dora Walters moved

temporarily to Savona until
1932so her children could
attend school. Left to right are
daughters Vi, Rita, Myrtle and
June. They spent their summers
and holidays at the ranch

The original old buildings at

the Walters' ranch - garage,
blacksmith shop, chicken house,
and pigpen. The ranch never
got electricity or te.lephone until
years after the Walters left.

Rita Walters about to

take a party of fishermen into Hihume
Lake. Rita and her
sister June becaine the
first two female licensee
guides in Canada.

Rita and June ready to

escort more guests up
to the lake. Many of
them had never ridden
on a horse before. The
only one who ever fell
off was dnmk.

June's friend, Maxine

Cooper, beside June - i
the middle - taking out
a party of four. Maxine
now Maxine Boyko,
lives ill Savona.

June Walters and

her dog
Rita Walters and a moose rack.
Years later Rita was granted the
"The Key To The City of Kamloops"
for her work with young people and
the St. John's Ambulance Society.

This baby moose wandered

into the Walters' yard one day
where it stayed all summer
before disappearing back into
the forest. Vivian Walters,
Doug's daughter, is giving it
some milk.

June Charlton on left,

their two sons Wally
in 1946.

flanked by
Bill were

1969, at
50, June
joined two
clubs
competed in
racing, pole
bending,
horse, stakes, ribbon
racing
flag racing events. Here
of
50 trophies
she displays
she won. She also received over
250 ribbons, most of them firnts. "I
had a
"
said.

BELOW:

to a U'VA~U
some eggs. She
two syrup pails full of eggs to
;:.au.u..... strings but
she
swtmg up into the saddle it was
time! The normally
of
'VVOJLUJ!.'-

w
Cooper
June filled

and her friend

she was feeding the
hay, tied the steering
back of the truck as it drove
old Walters'

" '""""' valley,

IHIUUIC distance

lS

This map of Buffalo Township, located in the southeast comer of Butler County,
was drawn in 1874, six years before Bud Walters: was born. The township
is approximately five miles square and the map shows the location of every resident,
including that of Philip Walters, lower center. Bud was born here in his grandparents' house. Up the road past the family fa1m are a number of his close relatives
named Fleming and Ekas. The railroad that ran southeast down through the
hamlets of Sarversville and Monroeville is where Bud climbed on a boxcar in 1894
and rode to a new life as a cowboy in Texas. The roadbed is now a linear park
(

The Diocese of New Westminster

The Mosl Reverend

Dou11las Hambldgc
Arrhhl~hop

ARCHIVES - 6000 Iona Drive,

Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1L4
(604)228-9031, local 239

"'302 814 Richards SI reel

Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3A7

Telephone 16041 M46l0o

and Mrlropoll1;in

F:ix (60:) r~

'Z;l3ol.Y!

Feb. 26 1 1991.

Betty Barett,

M~~~

Box

4229,

Lower Nicola, B.C.,

VOK lYO.

Dear Mrs. Barett,

I have enclosed a certified copy of the baptism of David Oppenheim
and this list of the other Oppenheim baptisms found in the Yale register.
No record of Philip was found in any of the registers of the period
that we consulted.
The remaining baptisms are as follows:
Birth:Oct. 7, 1879 Baptism:
:July 22, 1880
:Aug. 31, 1883
: May 17, 187 4
:Sept. 5, 1876
: June 9, l 886
:March 22, 1889
#201
: Oct. 18 , 18 ~ l
#205

#177
#179
~ #180
#181
#182
#]91

**
**

April 17, 1885 Rosy

May 4, 1885
Helen
May 4, 1885
Dorothea -~
May 16, 1885
Rachel "'
May 16, 1885
Esther
June 29, 1886
David
April 18, 1890 Nathan Samuel ....
not given, but Willi am
between baptisms
dated Aug. 20, 1891 and Dec. 5, 1891.

*****The parents listed for William are Henry, labourer and Hannah Oppenheim,
7
surname given as Oppenhe~
God-parents are listed for Nathan, only, and are W. Mackenzie, George Swallus
and S. Margaret CAH.
I hope this information is useful . I'm sorry we were not able to track down Philip.
I even checked confirmatjon records, with no success, even though !'did see several
of the girls listed.

v~~~
Doreen Stephens, Diocesan Archivist.

r:IJ'f."'

27f-

a rf?9

J_,,.., '"-;

c:

0 'f (" c:n.Y H ~ , ,..-..

~ r3y

,-($ 0 - /.t<J.r;-/'rrf,r>-P {)ff

(3'-l~,'<::~
l)

;qj I.' -

(h~ 1~
( ' 0-

I <;'q<J

"11 ,e:-~

7'

~
.
'

When Bud Walters needed an official record of

his birth, his father, J .A. Walter (he never put an
"s" at the end of his name) testified with shaky
handwriting that his son, Clyde Brenton Walters
was born on February 4, 1880 .
On the page opposite the Anglican Church archives
verified in 1991 that Bud's wife, Dorothea, was born
on August 31, 1883. Although Louis Oppenheim,
Dorothea's father, was Jewish he had all his children
except Philip baptised as Anglicans. Dorothea's mother,
Hannah Andrews, was born on the Seabird Island
Indian reserve near Agassiz. Her grandfather was a
chief named Bella but nothing is known about her father .

DEDICATION

OFKDKA
"DOGHOUSE"

SAXONBURG HISTORICAL
AND
RESTORATION COMMISSION
JUNE 28, 2003
2:00 P.M.

ABOUT KDKA "DOG HOUSE"

__

1 Cl"'lf\

... ___ -

,_

When the KDKA "Dog House" was no longer needed, it was moved to
the back yard of Elvyn and Pearl Sollie's home on Main Street,
Saxonburg. Elvyn was an engineer at KDKA for a number of years.
PamH. Walters purchased the property on March 16, 1993. Realizing
its historical value, on October 18, 2002, she donated it to the
Saxonburg Historical & Restoration Commission to be placed in
Roebling Park, a fitting place for this historic building; She knew its
historical significance_ and wanted it to remabi in Saxonburg. ..

KDKA broadcast for the frrst time on radio on November 2, 1920,'i;;_

East Pittsburgh as the World's First Licensed Commercial Radio
Broadcast Station with regularly scheduled programs. In 1929 their
transmitter was moved to Saxonburg and in 1937 they built a 718-foot
antenna tower at their plant. At. the base of the tower they placed an
engineering item called the "Spider Coil" to match the systems and to
prevent a loss of the signal. This "Spider Coil" was housed in a small
building called the "Dog House" to provide protection against the
weather. The copper coil is 83 feet long end to end.

Before the "Spider Coil" was moved to Allison Park in 1940, through
this "Coil" in its "Dog House," it has been said that voices of kings,
queens, United States Presidents, the cries of disaster, the music of the
symphony, the cannon of war, major news event and the laughter of
children were heard.

When the tower was replaced in 1994, the Coil was recovered and is
currently on exhibit in the Saxonburg Museum. The "Dog House"
remained at the Main Street home for sixty-two years until it was
moved to DU-CO Ceraniics for refurbishing and it is now at its
permanent home in Roebling Park.

This day of historical appreciation has been made possible through

the generosity of Pamela H. Walters.

1'.Tn.~m~l.~- "I

The world's first licensed radio station made

1tc flrct hrAofl,_,,.,.,+

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anglican Diocese of New Westminster archives, 6000 Iona Drive, Vancouver, B.C.
V6T 1L4 ( 228-9031 ), pages 62-63, baptismal record of four Oppenheim children,
including Dorothea, May 4, 1885
Balf, Mary, "Kamloops, A History of the District up to 1914" - Royal htland Hospital
pages 66-69; population statistics, pagel 12; Kamloops telephone system, page 46;
Charles Pennie and Walhaclrin orchards, page 142-143; creation ofDeadmans Creek
Indian Reserve, page 144; arrival of the fur traders, page 7 .
Bendzak, Missy, P.O. Box 8, Savona, B.C. VOK 210, (250)-373-2636, Circle W Ranch
Bryan, Liz & Jack, Backroads of British Columbia, "By Deadman's Rippled Rocks",
pages 132-134 - how Deadman's Creek got its name
Buffalo Township Newsletter and Directory, Volume TI, 1998, Butler County,
Pennsylvania
Burnaby Historical Society, The - "The Fraser's History From Glaciers to Early
Settlements," papers from a seminar of the British Columbia Historical Association, May
27, 1977. Pages 22-24. - describing earliest discovery of human habitation at Yale, B.C.
Butler County Historical Society, P.O. Box 414, Butler, Pennsylvania 16003-0414, (724)
283-8116 Fax (724) 283-2505
Butler County Historical Society, Butler, Pennsylvania., "Beautiful Bountiful Butler
Country, 1776 - 1983", William Andrew Smith of Butler Country, drilled the world's first
oil well in 1859, pages 4 and 41-42
Butler County, History of - published in 1883 - Chapter XXVII, pages 254-255
Buffalo County, map of, dated 1874, showing location of the farm of Philip Walters,
grandfather of Bud Walters, and the residences of many relatives of the Walters family
Butler County National Bank and Trust Co., "Butler County Yesterdays", describing
Butler County in the 'Gay Nineties', pages 12-19.
Census of Canada, 1891, Province of British Columbia, District Number 5, Yale, SubDistrict Cache Creek, enumerated April 9, 1891 - Charles Pennie, age 52, farmer, and his
wife Catharine, age 42, both born in Scotland; in Census of Canada, 1901,Charles not
listed; Catharine shown as head of household, aged 52; employed 7 farm labourers .

Census of Canada, 1891, Province of British Columbia, District Number 5, Yale, SubDistrict Cache Creek, enumerated April 9, 1891 - listing names and occupations of
Deadman's Creek Indian band
Charlton (nee Walters), June F., 1659 Valleyview Drive, Kamloops, B.C. VOE 2PO (250)
377-3232, daughter of Bud Walters - anecdote of her dad and George Edwards, alias
Bill Miner, at the Douglas Lake Cattle Ranch, when several Chinese were killed in a runaway wagon driven by Miner; account of telephone call to Kamloops hospital when Bud
Walters was hurt; details of Circle W Ranch and description of Hihium fishing resort
Cowboy Times, The - Official program of the 2001 Kamloops, B.C. Cowboy Festival,
March, 2001, featuring a two-page article about June Charlton (nee Walters), entitled
"Working Cowboy," pages 2 and 3
Edwards, John G.H., Apt 412, 173 Cooper Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K2P OE9, former
resident of W alhachin and Savona - memories of Deadman' s Creek natives who dealt at
his father's Savona store; description of Charles E. Barnes' W alhachin house, acquired
by him in 1947, dismantled and rebuilt at Savona.
Encyclopedia Americana 2001, International Edition, Volume 8, description of trail
drives from Texas and cowboy life during Bud Walters' era, pages 129-131
Encyclopedia Americana 2001, International Edition, Volume 21, pages 659-661
Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 9, 1959, Friends, Society Of, pages 846-850,
Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 17, 1959, Penn, William, pages 473-479,
Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 1, 1959, Alberta, page 525
Fisher, Robin - "Joseph Tmtch and Indian Land Policy'', B.C. Studies, No. 12, Wint3r,
1971-72 - "The Indians really have no right to the lands they claim, nor are they of any
actual value or utility to them . . . "
Forsythe, Mark, Beautiful British Columbia Volume 40, No. 2, Summer, 1998, pages 3842 - "Hihium Lake Calling"
Haig-Brown, Celia - Tillacum Library, 1988, "Resistance and Renewal, Surviving the
Indian Residential School", punishment for speaking their native language, page 11
Howay, F.W., "British Columbia, The Making Of A Province", pages 141-144,
description of the construction of the Cariboo Road in 1864

Jewish Western Bulle~ B.C., Centenary Edition 1858-1958, Vancouver, B.C., Volume
XXVI, No. 26, Tamuz 12,5718, June 30, 1958 - The Oppenheimers of British Columbia

Kamloops Sentinel newspaper -August 24, 1923, "Weston Frost makes fast journey from
coast in 30 hours"; June 14, 1927, "Travellers Like Canada"; "Januruy 13, 1931,
"Copper Creek News, J.W. Smith is loading cordwood at our siding for Walhachin".
Knight Brothers Ranch, Raymond, Alberta - telephone conservation with Dean
Sulenback, ranch historian, April 3, 2003; 403-752-4551
Liddell, Ken, Modem Press, Prairie Books Service, 1966, "I'll Take The Train", wild
cowboys in Shelby, Montana, pages 170-171
Mathews, W.H. - The Royal Society of Canada, Section IV 1944, "Glacial Lakes and Ice
Retreat in South-Central British Columbia", page 46, description of Deadman River delta
May, Robin, Bison Books, "Gunfighters", Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, pages
138-139 - The "Hole In The Wall Gang"
Melvin, George H. - "The Post Offices of British Columbia 1858-1970", page 29, Cultus
Lake post office described as 15 miles north of Savona on Deadman' s Creek at Gorge
Creek; Chinook word for "worthless" or "bad". L.H. Beamish postmaster, March 3, 1913
to April 11, 1914; followed by J. Fyfe, May 7, 1914 to June 30, 1915 .
National Geographic Society, Volume 153, No.6, June, 1978, "Fall:e Land of William
Penn", page 731
National Geographic Society, "The American Cowboy In Life and Legend," 1972,
description of early cattle drives, pages 78-81
National Geographic historical map of the Canadian prairie provinces, October, 1994
Nmton, Wayne, Plateau Press, "Reflections - Thompson Valley Histories," st01y of the
capture of train robber Bill Miner near Douglas Lake, pages 120-123
Ormsby, Margaret A. - "British Columbia: a History'', the MacMillans in Canada, 1958;
page 103, early life of James Douglas in British Guiana; page 281, 2,000 Chinese
coolies imported to build the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Fraser Canyon.
Pennsylvania Historical Clrronicle, Eastern Publications Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio 45239,
featuring Beaver and Butler Counties, pages 2-3

Picken, M., "British Columbia Hand Book, City of Vancouver - 1887", brief biography of
Aldermen David and Isaac Oppenheimer, page 28
Plantagenet Somerset Fry, "1, 000 Great Lives", Fox, George, founder of Quaker relgion,
pages 164-65; Marconi, Guglielmo, first wireless signal across the Atlantic, page 283
Stanyer (nee Walters), Violet, Victoria, B.C., daughter of Bud Walters, manuscript
written by her describing the life of her father; plus personal letters to Ed Villiers
describing early days at the Circle W Ranch, including building the road to Hihium Lake
Sutherland, Andy, Unit 6, 14834 lOOth Avenue, Surrey, B.C., formerly a resident of
Walhachin, B.C. - orally describing how he dressed deer from the rafters of the
abandoned Walhachin hotel dining room, and later bmned the lumber from the hotel for
firewood
Skeetchestn Band office, Shuswap Nation, Box 178, Savona, B.C. - 1-866-373-2493 Shirley Calhoon - confirming approximate area and population of reserve
Swimme, Les, East 31 Peale Drive, Harstine Island, Shelton, Washington, formerly of the
Fountain Indian Reserve near Lillooet - orally describing the Kamloops Indian
Residential School, and the flat deck truck that took him there
Tarentum History Landmarks Foundation Inc., Post Office Box 1776, Tarentum,
Pennsylvania 15084-1776 - Robert J. Lucas, (724) 224-3717, providing details of the life
of John Albert Walters, and the history of Tarentum
Threlkeld, Richard - P.O. Box 314, 108-Mile Ranch, B.C. 250-791-7752 - Oral
description how buckskin was made
Van Dyke, Grace - 534 South Pike Road, Sarver, Pennsylvania 16055 - 724-353-1387,
describing Buffalo Township today and what it was like when Bud Walters was a boy
Victoria Daily Colonist, Victoria, B.C. - August 31, 1906, page 6, describing the meeting
of three Indian chiefs with King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Buckingham Palace
Villiers, Edward, "Savona, An Album Of Its Early Years", 2001, Leslie Lome Leighton's
memories of driving stagecoaches out of Ashcroft; "The Vidette Gold Mine"; Maple
Ridge Gazette, September 20, 1962, page 1, "Haney Was Hideout Of Notorious Train
Robber Bill Miner"
Waite, Don, "Tales of the Fraser Canyon Illustrated", pages 46-52, the building of the
Cariboo Road and the stagecoaches of Barnard's Express

Walter Family History, single sheet, provided by June Charlton (nee Walters); plus
newspaper clippings telling of John A. Walters' 801h and 8!81 birthdays in Tarentum,
Pennsylvania 1932, 1933
Walters, Clyde Brenton (Bud) - copies of three letters written by him from hospital in
Kamloops, B.C. to his father in Pennsylvania, dated May 25, May 31, and June 2, 1905
Walters, Jack, Penticton, B.C., son of Bud Walters - numerous oral and written
recollections, documents and photographs about his family and the Circle W ranch
Ware, Reuben - "A history of cut-off lands and land losses from Indian reserves in British
Columbia", April, 1974 - Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, 342 Water Street,
Vancouver, B.C .
Weir, Joan - ''Walhachin, Catastrophe or Camelot ?" , Hancock House, pages 8, 11, 20
An account of the rise fall of the English orchard colony ofWalhachin, B.C.
Zavadsky, Sara Jane - archivist, Butler County Historical Society, P.O. Box 414, Butler,
Pennsylvania -written and verbal history of Butler County, Buffalo Township, and of the
Walters family