Home Ranch Revisited The family home. BY PHIL MEGYESI
T e area we visited on this trip has so much rich history in the province of British Columbia we felt we had to go and see for ourselves what the pioneers of this area had lived in. I am talking of Pan Phillips and Rich
Hobson who traveled to the interior of BC in the 30’s from the eastern United States to build a life on the famous Home Ranch. I am sure many of the readers of this magazine have read Rich Hobson’s books Grass Beyond the Mountains, Rancher Takes a Wife, and Nothing Too Good For A Cowboy, so this may be of interest to them as it was to us. Our riding partners on this trip were
the same as most of our previous stories, Tom & Beryl Maxwell, my wife Delle, and of course Cooper my faithful riding partner. T ere are numerous ways to get to the ranch, but we chose going north to Prince George from Quesnel, and then west to Vanderhoof. At that point we turned south for 167 km on the well- graveled Kluskus forest service road to
our drop-off point near the Blackwater River. T ere was a good level spot to park our RV’s off the roadway in an open area. T e weather had been extremely dry for many weeks, and there were forest fi res in the area, but none that prevented us from seeing the country we had heard and read so much about. Next morning we packed our lunches
and loaded up the quads for our trip back in history. South we traveled and crossed the
much-heralded Mackenzie or Grease Trail that was traveled on by the early settlers of this country, as well as the native Indians who traded with other native tribes who lived in the area. We crossed the Blackwater River and followed the trail thru a local active ranch. Aſt er a brief conversation there with the owner, we ventured down the trail to the Home Ranch. Aſt er about an hour of rocky trail the forest opened up to a huge meadow with old ranch buildings on the far right side about a kilometre away.
T e entire setting was breathtaking
with the magnifi cent Itcha Ilgachuz Mountain Range in the background. We took the leſt trail at this point and it brought us to a beautifully constructed rock cairn with a roof and log fence around it, built in memory of Pan and Betty Phillips, and Len Cave, a local pilot who had crashed his aircraſt on the meadow behind us many years ago. Having spoken with family members and friends, we had been told that some ashes of those named on the cairn were buried there. An old leather-covered book in a weatherproof box was fastened to the structure and we signed our names, as had many others who have been there before us. Many names of people we knew and have ridden with were signed in and numerous others had traveled this way by snowmobile, as this is also a very popular place in the wintertime. Aſt er picture time, we turned around
and headed for the abandoned building to the west. As we followed the trail the abandoned buildings came into view;
24 RVT 142 • JULY/AUGUST 2011
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