X bar J Ranch

[TeeVee]

Hey guys just wondering if there is anyone on here that remembers the xbj ranch up deadman valley back in the day? Stad who called xbj home was a true bushman that would walk further than most of us nowadays take a quad alone. Him and a few others were tough people. He had a small trappers cabin at tillurick (sp)? I went there last summer off the joe ross road and there is nothing left after the fires of 2021. Family has had a place around there since 1953.
If anyone has some stories to tell or photos please pm me it would be greatly appreciated!

[MichelD]

I was up there at Easter about 30 years ago driving with my wife and 16 year-old daughter.

We were just randomly exploring around with no backroad mapbooks or anything like that, just one of those old BCFS fold-out paper maps that roughly showed the main logging roads and hoped to connect with roads going east to Kamloops but ended up at the abandoned ranch at sunset. Went though a very substantial swinging gate. The big old two and a half-story log house was intact still. It was a bit like coming to an old ranch from the century before. There were numerous macrame hangings holding flower pots with each one impressively holding a substantial swallow's nest. The whole place was spectacular and a bit spooky.

It was raining heavily and we drove across the wet fields to an old ranch hand cabin and breaking some pine branches off trees swept the years of mouse and rat shit up off the floor to clear a spot wide enough to put our air mattresses and sleeping bags down. We made something to eat on the one-burner gas camping stove. It was raining through holes in the roof so we all slept under a tarp. In the middle of the night the steady hammering of the rain switched to a kind of hiss and in the morning we woke to six inches of fresh snow. I was really really concerned about a very wet boggy spot we had driven through to get there afraid we might get stuck and stranded so we packed up quickly and with the Nissan pickup in low gear four wheel drive we carefully navigated our way across the fileld back up to the gate and out.

That was probably one of the most fun experiences the three of us ever had together.

I think we drove out and back down Deadman valley road, crossed the Thompson to Savona for lunch then went up and pitched a tent at some still-frozen over lake the next night.

I'd be interested in hearing other Bar XJ stories, at least that was the way I remember it being called on the gate.

I have a friend in the neighbourhood who lost his cabin at Mowitch Lake in the fire.

[TeeVee]

That is an excellent story MichelD, definitely appreciate it!

[REMINGTON JIM]

Kool Storey ! RJ

[MichelD]

I'd be interested in hearing other stories about the ranch. Who owned it? It was clearly abandoned when I was there circa 1993 but it looked like it had been occupied either legally or squatted by someone who was pretty handy (curtain rods made of small poles on "Y" supports cut from small trees and fond of macrame.

Was Stad a caretaker? The land must have belonged to someone.

[250 sav]

I'd be interested in hearing other stories about the ranch. Who owned it? It was clearly abandoned when I was there circa 1993 but it looked like it had been occupied either legally or squatted by someone who was pretty handy (curtain rods made of small poles on "Y" supports cut from small trees and fond of macrame.

Was Stad a caretaker? The land must have belonged to someone.

At that time i believe Weyerhaeuser owned it.I think Stewart's owned after that. Then I think the Skechestsen band was trying to get it and think they did but sure. Stad was a local trapper.

[MichelD]

My shutter jammed, battery went dead or my exposure meter quit on my camera on that trip, I don't recall which, thus regrettably no pictures.