Fred Palmantier was cowboying with his father as soon as he could sit on a horse.
“I did not go to school until I was 11 years old,” the 86-year-old said. “When I did go my teacher said cowboying was a big part of my education.”
A member of Tl’esqox First Nation, Fred is the oldest of eight children.
His parents Leonard Palmantier and Josephine (Grambush) homesteaded in the Riske Creek area.
Originally from Utah, Leonard was born in 1889 and arrived in the Cariboo around 1914.
Josephine was born in 1917 was a member of the Tl’esqox First Nation,
Fred and his siblings were all born at home.
“My brother Jack was born in the back of a sleigh.”
Their nearest neighbours were Eric and Lillian Collier and their son Veasy.
Eric was the author of Three Against the Wilderness in which he depicted the 26 years his family spent living in the wilderness.
“They often stayed at our place or we stayed at theirs,” Fred said.
When the decision was made that Fred should attend Bald Mountain Elementary School at Riske Creek he rode a horse to school.
Eventually Leonard built a cabin for them to live in that was closer to the school.
At school, Fred learned how to read and write and credited his aunt Mary Jane Garland for helping him as well.
With his mom marrying a non-Indigenous person, she lost her status and her children never had it.
It was later restored by the efforts of Chief Ray Hance, chief of Tl’esqox and a Tsilhqot’in National Government co-ordinator, who fought for Indigenous people like the Palmantiers, Fred recalled.
“Ray and other leaders across Canada went to bat for our family. Even if you fought in the war and did not live on reserve, you lost your status.”
Fred worked as a cowboy for many years, starting out Gang Ranch where he learned from a horse trainer.
He also worked at Meldrum Creek Ranch and Moon Ranch.
To supplement the family income he sometimes worked as a logger and for stints up north in the oil fields, driving a water truck.
He was married twice and had eight children in total, six with his first wife and two with his second wife, he said.
According to the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame write-up about Leonard, soon after he arrived in the Cariboo, to raise some extra cash he would ride bucking horses to entertain the train passengers at Williams Lake.
“That was the beginning of the Williams Lake Stampede,” noted the hall of fame write-up.
Following in his footsteps, Fred and his siblings George, Jack, Julie and Joan became rodeo competitors.
Fred rode saddle bronc, bareback, bulls, did calf roping and team roping.
Linda Lou-Howarth in an article for the Efteen in 2012, credited Fred for starting the Chilcotin Rodeo Association so that local cowboys could have a rodeo to attend that was close by.
Once that association got well underway Fred started the Chilcotin Trails rodeo string of bucking bulls.
“I used to rodeo with Henry Bowe, with Gil Bowe and a lot of those guys,” Fred said. “We always looked after each other on the rodeo trail. We never let any of our buddies get stuck anywhere.
“But it seems as though we travelled a long way just to enter a rodeo so I thought … why not have an association for rodeos closer to home. It was a good idea for quite awhile anyway.”
Fred continues to live at Tl’esqox, also known as Toosey.
READ MORE: Fred Palmantier back in the saddle again
READ MORE: CASUAL COUNTRY: Cariboo’s Joan Gentles overcomes obstacles, feels fortunate
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