The first time I came to Williams Lake was in the fall of 1964. It was for a young peoples’ conference hosted by St. Peter’s Anglican Church.
I distinctly remember two things about the bus trip up from Vancouver – the beautiful rolling countryside with its profusion of gold leaves and its intense blue skies, and how cold it was as we stepped off the bus. It was probably only around zero, but to a boy from the coast, where the temperatures seldom got anywhere close to that, it seemed like the Arctic!
I was billeted with a veterinarian and his wife, Dr. and Mrs. Woods, who had a house on the north lakeside, just past the Bil Nor café. I don’t remember much about their house, although I do remember their warm hospitality. I also remember Dr. Woods showing me some old cabins in the woods which he thought were derelicts and eye sores. At the time, of course, I had little interest in old cabins or their history, so I probably just politely agreed with him.
When I returned to Williams Lake to begin my teaching career in 1969, Dr. and Mrs. Woods had left, although the Woods name still remained on a small access road which runs for a short distance parallel to Highway 97. Over the years, I have often wondered about the old buildings there on the edge of our town, so when I noticed that someone had recently been doing some landscaping and reconstruction work, I set out to find out a little about the history of that area. What I found proved to be quite interesting.
For many years after the establishment of the second Williams Lake in 1921, the north lakeside area was considered to be useless bush land. The terrain was steep and rocky, and access was not easy. The flats near Scout Island and several places along the lake’s shoreline showed evidence of occupation by the Indigenous peoples, and there were old trails which were once well used, but from a 1900’s settler perspective, the land was of little agricultural use. It was not until the mid 1930s or so that this land was surveyed and given a district lot designation. These lots were long, narrow pieces of land extending from the lakeshore a good way up above the current highway 97. When the highway was improved from a narrow gravel road to a more substantial artery in the early 1950s, the portions of these lots above the highway were subdivided and sold off.
There were a number of small acreages thus created between the highway and lake, but I am going to focus on just two of them. First, a bit of a digression. Some time ago, I wrote an article about the pothole Ranch at the Farwell Canyon. It was established in the early 1900s by Gordon Farwell. In 1912, Farwell went into partnership with another young Englishman, Gerald Blankinsop. The partners built separate homes at the ranch, and Blenkinsop married Madeline Wheeler, nicknamed Queenie. The partners sold the Pothole to the Gang Ranch in 1919, and the Blenkinsops move up to the Big Creek area, where Gerald and Queenie raised two children and continued to work at ranching. In 1948, they retired, sold their holdings to the Chilco Ranch, and moved into Williams Lake. There, they purchased one of the three-acre pieces of land on the north shore from George Abbey.
George was originally from Scottland. He had his own place next to the vacant land and he raised a few animals there. He was a master log house builder, and the Blenkinsops hired him to construct a home for them to live in along with three small rental cabins.
When the house was completed, they moved in and remained there until Gerald’s death in 1969. Queenie stayed on for a few more years before moving into the Cariboo Park Home. She was over 100 years of age when she passed away in 1991. Daughter Fay sold the property soon after.
The other piece of land was another three-acre parcel adjoining the Blenkinsops' property. It was owned by Hugh Cornwall, who along with his wife Sonia, had the Onward ranch. Cornwall sold the acreage on north lakeside to a young couple, Ron and Jean Waite, who he had met through the Cariboo Cattleman’s Association. Ron had worked as a policeman for the Pacific Great Eastern Railway before leaving to take up ranching in the Anahim Lake area. Jean had been engaged but lost her fiancé during World War II.
She was accompanying her father, who was a surveyor, on a trip to Anahim Lake when she met Ron. The two hit it off and eventually married deciding to settle in Williams Lake. They too had George Abbey construct a number of log buildings for them, including a main house, a guest cabin, a chicken house (which later served as a garage), a small barn and a pig house. Ron and Jean lived a quiet, self-sufficient life in their home on this property until their deaths, Ron in 1979, and Jean in 2003. Jean became well known as the local field naturalist community and was a driving force in the development of the Scout Island nature preserve.
In the mid 1970s the guest cabin caught fire, but fortunately, it was saved. The place was dismantled log by log and moved to a homesite on the Hodgson Road, where it is still in use today. All the other buildings remain in place, awaiting restoration.
Today, these two three-acre pieces of land have been repurchased and are being redeveloped. The Blenkinsop house has been refurbished with the original log work being not only retained but improved. Two of the outbuildings have had their foundations renewed and new roofs added. Extensive landscaping has been done. Plans are also in place to renovate and rebuild the other old buildings there, including the Waite home. It’s great to see both old homesteads being cleaned up and repurposed while at the same time, the history is being preserved.
My thanks to the current owners and occupant for sharing this history and for providing their input and advice for the column.
Editor’s note: Paul Zacharias and his late wife Sue purchased the property about five years ago. Paul said refurbishing the historical buildings on site continues, plus he built a new shop on site.
