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The Parke Family

The Parke family is another one of the pioneer ranching families in this area, and its fifth generation still ranches in the Upper Hat Creek Valley today.

The first Parke to arrive in Canada was Philip Parke from County Sligo on Ireland's west coast, who started a cattle ranch in the Bonaparte Valley a mile north of Cache Creek, B.C., in 1862.

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Parke, Philip
Circa 1850
Unknown

Credits:
Gordon Parke

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Philip was in his early 20s and had decided to leave his family of five brothers and three sisters after news of the Cariboo Gold Rush had reached their home by the sea. He left by ship to sail around Cape Horn and landed in Vancouver, setting out by foot for the distant promises of gold, but never made it all the way. After having walked over 200 miles from Vancouver and probably encountering numerous disillusioned miners, who didn't strike it rich and were trekking back south with empty pockets, he recognized the potential for raising crops and livestock in the valley and decided to settle here. For several years he worked at whatever jobs he could find, building a bridge in Lillooet and working for the Cornwall brothers at Ashcroft Manor, before he had saved enough money to acquire ranching property of his own. He chose land in the Bonaparte River Valley and called his ranch the Buonaparte Ranch. The "u" was later dropped from the name, but the property remained in the Parke family for four generations and is the oldest ranching property in B.C. and Alberta to have remained in the same family for that long.

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The Wayside House at Cache Creek, BC
Circa 1865
Cache Creek, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
Gordon Parke

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Philip Parke began to shape a productive cattle ranch out of quite undeveloped land. The land in this area with its dry climate and less than 10 inches of rain per year required irrigation water, and it is rumoured that Philip built four miles of irrigation ditch from the Bonaparte River to his fields with the help of horses, a scraper and local Indians. These were Interior Salish Indians, and many of them became employed by local farmers and ranchers for generations. Philip Parke learned to speak "Chinook Indian", a version of the Indian language widely used in the early days.

Philip cleared his potential fields from willow, birch, alder and cottonwood during the winter months, and purchased cattle for seed stock from the drovers who trailed herds from Washington and Oregon, destined for the plates of hungry miners. As time passed, the Bonaparte Ranch became more and more developed, and 23 years after Philip's arrival in Canada, his younger brother Tom joined him. Tom lived with his older brother for a while and then purchased a property called the Bishop Ranch seven miles south of Clinton, B.C. Tom married and had four children. One of his sons, Stanley, settled in Cache Creek, B.C., and became the postmaster for the spread-out rural community for many years.

Philip returned to Ireland for a time to marry his childhood sweetheart, Francis, and to bring her back to Canada. He built a large, two-storey house on the Bonaparte Ranch, with a large kitchen for a hired cook and space for employees to dine.

Toward the end of the century, Philip's attention was taken by some particularly attractive property in the Hat Creek Valley, which adjoins the Bonaparte Valley to the west. Fertile valley bottom fields, excellent open grasslands on the side of the valley, and considerable scattered timber must have had a great appeal to the young man from Ireland. He was set to find a way to obtain land in this lovely, but out-of-the-way valley, where grass "grew to a horse's belly", as people used to say.

In 1900, Philip Parke found a way to get the land he wanted in the Upper Hat Creek Valley. Mr. Cornwall of Ashcroft Manor, for whom Philip Parke once worked, owned property in the valley. He also owned property not far from Ashcroft Manor called the Hibernia Ranch, but he did not own water rights needed for the property. Philip Parke owned these! A swap was made and PP, as he was then known (pronounced "Pay Pay"), became owner of "The Meadows", as the early Parkes referred to their new land. Later it became known as "The Parke Ranch, Upper Hat Creek". Philip ran it for the remainder of his long life, along with this Bonaparte Ranch at Hat Creek, but he never built a permanent home there. He continued to live at the Bonaparte and commuted to his upper ranch to put up hay and work the cattle. While there, he lived in a tent camp with an occasional log and fir rail shelter for harnesses and horse-drawn machinery such as mowers. For many years, cattle were driven back and forth across the mountain or up and back on the wagon road, which took two to three days, and was done at least twice a year.

Philip Parke registered a cattle brand after his initials, PP. Over the decades, many thousands of cattle wore the PP brand on their left hip. It became widely recognized as one of the pioneer brands of the industry.

Philip died in 1927 in his mid eighties, and his wife Francis followed him a few years later in 1932. They had no children, and the ranches were inherited by Arthur Parke, the son of Philip's nephew Henry,

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Parke, Henry and Parke, Philip
4 July 1908
Bonaparte Ranch, Cache Creek, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
Gordon Parke

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Henry had journeyed from Ireland to join his uncle Philip some time in the late nineteenth century. He reportedly worked on the well-known Gang Ranch in the early 1890's, and about that time met his wife Isobella Frances Shaw, who had travelled to the United States to visit her brother, and then out west to spend time with her friend from Ireland, Mrs. Philip Parke. The marriage took place in 1895, and the couple took up residence on ranching property a few miles southeast of Ashcroft on a bench overlooking the Thompson River. It was called the Willard Ranch then, later the Gibson Ranch, and it was a troubled beginning for Henry Parke's ranching career. In 1899, the Privy Council ruled in favour of the Canadian Pacific Railway in its claim that irrigation waters from Henry Parke's property above C.P.R. tracks were the cause of repeated earth slides onto the tracks below. Henry had to sell his land and move away, and it was a hollow victory for him and his family when in subsequent years slides continued to occur long after irrigation was stopped on the benches above.

Henry and his family joined his uncle Philip on the Bonaparte Ranch for a while, but as soon as Henry was able to, he acquired property in Upper Hat Creek, adjoining his uncle's "The Meadows". For the next 30 years, uncle and nephew cared for neighbouring properties, which together became known as the Parke Ranch, Upper Hat Creek. Henry registered his own cattle brand, and being the second Parke to do so, he chose 2P placed on the right hip of the cattle. The brand has been in continual use since the early days of the twentieth century and is now owned by Henry's grandson, Gordon Parke. Like the PP brand, it is an excellent brand for its simplicity and clarity

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Parke Home in Upper Hat Creek
Circa 1900
Upper Hat Creek Valley, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
Gordon Parke

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About 1910, Henry built a two-storey frame house to replace their first dwelling, which was a small log structure with a sod roof. The new house was spacious and modern for its day, with high ceilings, sliding doors, and running water, but it had no insulation. Less hardy generations of Parkes later commented that at least the wind that blew in the valley did not blow inside, but otherwise there was little difference in temperature. Today the house has been renovated and insulated, and although it was not built on a proper foundation, it remains structurally sound like a weathered old man, still standing tall and erect.

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Parke Ranch House Today
Circa 1910
Upper Hat Creek Valley, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
Gordon Parke

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Henry and Isobella's children were educated in Cache Creek, at the All Hallows Boarding School in Yale, and at Columbian College in New Westminster. Henry suffered from asthma, and decided to retire to a lower altitude in 1935. They built their retirement home on the Bonaparte Ranch, and for many years thereafter both the Parke Ranch, Upper Hat Creek, and the Bonaparte Ranch were managed entirely by his son Arthur Parke.

The eldest daughter Sybil became a nurse in Victoria, but returned to live with and care for her aging mother after Henry died at seventy-six in the Ashcroft Hospital. When her mother passed away in the mid 1950's, Sybil stayed in the house by herself until her own death in 1988. She was 91 years when she died, but her independence and physical strength allowed her to live by herself most of her life, splitting and carrying her own firewood until old age and arthritis forced her to accept help from others.

The youngest daughter, Madeleine, became a nurse like her older sister. She moved to Los Angeles where she did private nursing until her death in the early 1980s.

The second daughter, Dorothy, had ranching in her blood and in 1937 married Basil Jackson, who owned and operated Hat Creek Ranch, a large cattle ranch at the junction of Hat Creek and the Bonaparte River. After Basil's death in 1977, his 7L cattle brand, which was acknowledged to be one of the best brands used anywhere in the country, was taken over by Dorothy's nephew Gordon. Dorothy continued to live on the ranch until 1993. Hat Creek Ranch was designated a provincial heritage site in the mid-1980's, and is now accessible to the public for guided tours through the ranch and the old roadhouse.

Henry's son Arthur was born in 1896 and was educated at the All Hallows Boarding School in Yale and at Columbia College in New Westminster. He returned from college in 1918 to work on his father's ranch in Upper Hat Creek. From there he courted his wife-to-be, Isabella Bennie, who lived 25 miles away (by saddle horse across the mountain) in the town of Ashcroft. They were married in 1926 and thought to settle in Upper Hat Creek, but Arthur's great-uncle Philip, who was nearing the end of his life, offered him to manage the Bonaparte Ranch near Cache Creek. Arthur accepted and immediately built a home, which he and his family occupied for the remainder of his life while he looked after the Bonaparte and Parke properties. Arthur did a lot of travelling back and forth the 30 miles of dusty road between the properties. In the summer, it became necessary to move all but the kitchen sink to Upper Hat Creek from the Bonaparte Ranch to do the haying. This involved a crew of 10 to 14 men, a cook, a herd of 30 work horses plus all harnesses, equipment, food, cooking utensils, and personal effects for all involved. It was a move that Arthur made for 40 years but one he never grew to like. In those days, approximately 1,000 tons of hay was put up each year, every blade was pitched by hand, and all equipment was horse-drawn.

Later, tractors replaced draft horses, bales replaced loose hay, and a work force of 3 men and machinery replaced as many as 14 in Arthur Parke's early crews. Arthur lived in both eras and moved with the times as well as he could A few weeks before his death, he purchased a self-propelled automatic bale wagon, designed to pick hay bales out of the field, build the load by itself, travel at fairly high speed on the road, and stack the load of bales neatly at its destination. He had looked forward to learning how to operate this exciting new machine, but a few weeks later he passed away in May 1967.

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The Parke's Annual Migration
Circa 1940
Upper Hat Creek Valley, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
Gordon Parke

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Arthur and Isa Parke had three children, Peggy, Gordon and Alan, all born in the late 1920's. They were able to travel to school by school bus from Cache Creek to Ashcroft until they reached grade ten. Then, the three were sent to boarding schools at the coast for a "more rounded education", and later to the University of British Columbia. During school holidays, the boys always returned to work on the ranch, not just to help but to learn and prepare them for what was simply assumed to be their future vocation. Parkes were ranchers, after all, since PP had shown the way so long ago. The children learned to ride at an early age and helped gather cattle on horseback or push them further onto summer range. As they grew older, they joined the work force making hay during the last days of using pitch forks and teams of horses, although in some remote ranch locations their use is by no means unheard of today. Gordon at taken courses in agricultural mechanics at university and had been introduced to the pick-up field baler. Soon, the Parkes gradually moved into the mechanical age.

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The Parke Family - Four Generations
Circa 1929
Bonaparte Ranch, Cache Creek, British Columbia, Canada

Credits:
Gordon Parke