ADVENTURES IN COOKING 45

completed when wagons were used. From the north they came by boat,
canoe, or raft on the Fraser River as far as Quesnel, 4 miles away.
Charley Weare, travelling with a survey party of the Grand ‘Trunk
Railway, came by dog-sled. He stopped at Quesnel for treatment to a
badly frozen foot, then in the Spring settled at Dragon Lake which is
presumed to have got its name from the shape of it; Dragon Mountain being
named later. Felix Hunger and his family settled and cultivated a garden
in 1898 but the first to grow vegetables on a commercial scale were the
Frank Lust’s in 1914. Quesnel’s constable, Mr. Dave Anderson bought
land at Dragon Lake in 1907 and started to make a ranch, using prisoners
to clear the land. Many summer homes sprang up around the lake, with
practically everyone around owning a boat of sorts, sail boats being quite
popular but a contraption of two canoes roped side by side with a sail
fixed between was the chief means of transportation of workmen to their
jobs. In 1910 the Anglican Mission which had a church at Quesnel, took
over a homestead from the town lawyer, Mr. Avison with intention of
making it a self-supporting ranch. A log school house was built by the
settlers in 1911 and in 1913 a telephone service was installed from Quesnel,
along the east side of the lake to the Earley Ranch by Cliff and Floyd
Vernon. ‘That same year Pete Quin operated a lime kiln of his own
manufacture, using the lime stone from the nearby Rock Pile. He
produced enough for Quesnel’s building needs. When the Gold Quartz
Mine was being developed and the town of Wells being planned, Ginger
Coots ran a shuttle plane. He used Dragon Lake as a base, it being
ideal for landing pontoon and ski-equipped aircraft. ‘The Dragon Lake
Women’s Institute was the first in the Quesnel district, being formed
in 1938. The first great river noted by Fraser, he named the Quesnel
after his lieutenant, with the town acquiring the same name. In 1921
the Pacific Great Eastern was finished to Quesnel.

The first to take up land in what is known as the “Australian
Kersley District” were a Swede, Andrew Olson and an Englishman, Steve
Downs. ‘They had been to the gold rush in Australia, then had worked
passage to B.C. Upon hearing of the gold rush at Barkerville they went
seeking their fortune. Disappointed with their mining efforts, two years
later in 1860 they built a stopping house and supplied the miners with
vegetables, hay and grain. From this start and building it up the
“Australian Ranch” came into being. In 1872 Jack Kersley bought a
farm and stopping place from a negro who had taken it up a few years
previously; hence the name Kersley.

Alexander MacKenzie and his party were the first to travel overland
to Bella Coola, arriving July 22, 1793. In the late 1800’s John Clayton
set up a Hudson’s Bay Co. fur trading post to buy furs from the Indians
in the valley. About 1890 methodist missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas
set up a Mission House for Indian children. Fillip Jacobsen of Norway
settled in the valley in 1892, liking it so well that he wrote to others
about it and asked the government to build roads into Bella Coola.
A year or so later these same men who came on road construction
stayed to farm.