CACHE CREEK – When the Hat Creek ranch came up for auction in August last year, Matt Pasco, chief of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council (NNTC), was ready.
Dubbed the “Hat Creek Collection” by online auctioneer CLHBid.com, the opportunity included 74,716 acres of land offered as a single parcel. The sale included 2,387 deeded acres with the remaining acres split between grazing leases and licences, a Crown lease and a BC Hydro lease. The opening bid was $5.9 million and sold to NNTC’s economic branch, Kntam a shaytknmahh: We Help the People LP, for $8.52 million.
The ranch’s 450 head of cattle, hay and equipment cost an additional $3 million or so, according to Henry Braun, who had been a partner in the ranch lands with his late brother George, Ken Friesen and Alf Funk since 2008.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Braun says of the sale, noting that he had no idea who was bidding on the property. “We’re happy we sold it, but I didn’t know they had that kind of money.”
Pasco says his community has been preparing for the day when they could acquire the lands, part of his community’s ancestral territories. NNTC includes communities from Ashcroft through to Lytton.
Kntam a shaytknmahh also purchased the Ashcroft Ranch from Metro Vancouver in April this year for $28 million.
“We’ve been ranching for generations; this is not new to my family,” Pasco says. “We’ve quietly strategized for the opportunity to do it, and here it is. Our intention is to grow food for our community.”
The Hat Creek collection, comprised of five separate yard sites including 88 Ranch and Upper Hat Creek Ranch, was highly productive, Braun says, with three to four feet of black soil. He and his partners had run 450 cow-calf pairs and produced hay, which NNTC continues today. The Ashcroft Ranch is currently leased to Monette Farms, which has 800 cow-calf pairs, and Pasco says that won’t change.
He adds that he would like to grow potatoes on both ranches, along with vegetables and fruits, such as melons.
“Way back when, the Ashcroft area grew a lot of potatoes,” Pasco says. “We want to integrate that back into what we’re doing. I think we can sustain cattle plus grow some vegetables at the same time.”
The land sales are indicative of a growing trend in BC, which is seeing more Indigenous communities taking over BC cattle ranches. The Stswecem’c Xget’tem (Canoe Creek-Dog Creek) First Nation (SXFN) recently acquired the Easy Go Ranch in Lac La Hache, and the Okanagan Indian Band bought O’Keefe Ranch.
BC Cattlemen’s Association president Kevin Boon encourages the sale of ranches to anyone who will continue to work them, and doesn’t have a problem when new owners keep them in production.
“One of the First Nations chiefs said to me when I first came to BC that the first cowboys were Indians,” Boon says. “They have been raising cattle since cattle came to BC.”
Cariboo cattle rancher and former BC NDP MLA David Zirnhelt says many Indigenous ranchers owned cattle in the past but didn’t have enough land. As an MLA in the 1990s, he advocated for the idea of land banks – having the government buy private land for treaty negotiations. The federal government rejected the idea but accepted a ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ approach, which prevails today.
The industry waned in recent decades due to the hard work and the barriers of accessing the capital and land to operate, but interest is increasing.
“It’s positive, it creates opportunities,” Zirnhelt says. “The more food you can grow yourself, the more you can buy what you can’t raise yourself. In Secwepemc culture, their leaders talked a lot about their ranches, and their version of a ranch was a traditional territory that they used for all kinds of food and gathering.”
Under the modern treaty process, the BC Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation (MIRR) has also bought several ranches for Northern Secwepemc te Qelmucw (NStQ) Indigenous communities in the Cariboo. These include the BC Cattle Co. for the SXFN, Bridge Creek Ranch for Tsq’escen’ (Canim Lake First Nation) and the Carpenter Mountain Ranch in 150 Mile for Xatśūll First Nation (Soda Creek Indian Band).
The lands are leased to First Nations with the intent to transfer them to the communities once an agreement is reached. The NStQ are in stage five of treaty process negotiations with the provincial and federal governments. As part of the treaty process, the province purchased the non-land assets required to operate the ranch businesses, such as livestock, equipment and/or hay inventory, depending on the ranch acquisition.
SXFN has plans to diversify its ranches, offering everything from tourism at its Big Bar Guest Ranch and Lac La Hache site to healing centres. BC Cattle Co. will continue to operate as a cattle ranch, with 600 cow-calf pairs.
SXFN Kupki7 Hank Adams says his First Nation is working with Thompson Rivers University’s regenerative agriculture program to install a floating vegetation system on one of the ponds and solar troughs, and using cultural burning to replenish overgrazed areas along the Fraser River. Plans are also in the works for a community garden and orchards, along with another greenhouse and cold storage. Plans call for training members as butchers so they can feed the community.
SFXN is also looking at training wild horses to help manage the land and reduce the impact on grasslands and rangelands.
“Historically, SXFN was known for growing the best wild potatoes in the area. Unfortunately, they plowed over them to make hayfields,” Adams says. “The community used to go all the way from the reserve to the Fraser River. That’s why it was important to get that ranch in the first place. We want to take care of ourselves. At the end of the day, it’s creating healthy beef in terms of food sovereignty and security.”
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