He started life as a slave in South Carolina and became one of the pioneering cattlemen in that part of Canada ’s North West Territories which eventually became the Province of Alberta .             In 1867 with the US Civil War at and end John Ware struck off to the west, a new land and a new life. Due to his unsurpassed ability to break and train mules he found work on a ranch near Fort Worth where he remained for a decade. Eventually he went north as the horse wrangler on a cattle herd, lost good friends and found others, panned for gold, became a drover again and rode into Canada .             This is a novel but as is usual with Bill Gallaher’s work it is well researched and faithfully follows the life of one of Canada ’s pioneers. John Ware is a legend among those who study the history of horse trainers, cattlemen, bronc riders and the beef industry. With his...

I have several short stories I've put together over the years but most of them would require three or four posts to make them fit on this blog. Here is one, however that is a short-short. Something similar actually happened about 20 years ago on a ranch up north of Fort. St. John although I've expanded on it somewhat. If you find the story entertaining, click on one of the book covers over to the right and take one of my novels home. The same stories can be found on amazon.com/books (D.M. McGowan) or on Google books, or Barnes & Noble. They are also available in a variety of digital formats. I'm always looking for reviews and would appreciate comments here or on any of the sites above that also have places for reviews. Dave What We Need is a Good Cattle Dog! By D.M. McGowan             I can't tell you how Alvin 's doing. It's been a while since I seen him. Alvin and I don't spend too much time together any mo...

I've just heard and read where people are saying that this horrific action in Orlando, Florida is all the fault of firearms laws. I can't agree and suspect that people are thinking with their hearts instead of their minds to even have such statements come out of their mouths. Such statements defy logic. It was a horrific act perhaps fueled by religious fundamentalism, poor education or outright ignorance but it was committed by, and therefore the fault of a person. However for those wishing the proper firearms information as collected by EVERY group that does collect ALL the information, here are the statistics. Firearm statistics from 2012 In the US Guns are used 80 times more often to protect a life than to take one. This is comparing self defence against suicide, homicide and accident combined. There are approximately 270 million privately owned firearms in the USA Each year in the USA a gun is used about 200 thousand times by a woman to avoid sexual abuse. ...

Here is an excerpt from “Homesteader”, my third published novel and the second with SBPRA. This is the piece very near the first where Hank and Harry meet the man who will prove a problem for them, Portis Martin. It is also one of the reasons that Hank decides to apply for land under the Homestead Act … to prove a thorn in Martin’s side. I'm not sure where these pictures were taken but this is the type of country they would have been riding through on their approach to Calgary, first on the train and then mounted and trailing down the eastern slope. Homesteader By D. M. McGowan Copyright © 2000 It was close to noon before we met the first discouraging thing although it took us several minutes to realize it. It was a man of perhaps two hundred and fifty pounds riding a sixteen hundred pound horse. He came out of the bush on the north side of the draw that ran down hill off to our left, followed by two average size men on two average size horses. We...

The Journey: The Overlander’s quest for gold by Bill Gallaher ISBN 978-1-894898-99-7 Touch Wood Editions http://www.touchwoodeditions.com/ As I have mentioned in earlier posts, gold was found early on in the fur trade days of what is now Canada ’s west coast. However the first publicized “discovery” was in 1850 on Haida Gwaii and that on the lower Fraser River in 1858. By the time the Cariboo Country was producing (Williams Creek or Barkerville discovery, spring 1861) those in Upper and Lower Canada ( Ontario and Quebec respectively) had already given some consideration to expending effort toward a new future. Since those areas and most of the world where suffering what we call today, “a serious depression” many of those with an adventurous bent thought nothing could be worse than what they where going through. The next problem was how to get to the gold fields. Those already involved in prospecting and mining, primarily from the Western US , Australia and So...

Forward             For many years I have been writing and telling stories about people I’ve known, places I’ve been, experiences I’ve had and the country I have spent time in or passed through. I have found that my experience with people, places and events sometimes clashes violently with those scenes depicted in Canadian history books. As a result I enjoy taking historical events and weaving them into my own stories.             My first attempt at publishing, “The Great Liquor War” was done in the “traditional” manner with the printing of 600 copies in 1998. A fine thing to start I thought, but within three months all copies were gone.             Since then “Partners” was released in 2008 and “Homesteader: Finding Sharon” in 2009.             “Homestea...

How important was the Cariboo Road ? What would be the state of development for Western Canada today if that road had not been forced through where a road could not go a century and a half ago? Without the force created by the scramble for gold would it have been built at all? There had been trappers in the British Columbia Mountains for decades. Many indigenous people and a few of European heritage had traded furs with the Hudson ’s Bay Company and the American Fur Company for decades. As a result there was transportation up as far as was navigable by stern-wheeler to Hope and sometimes Yale down stream on the Fraser from Hell’s Gate Canyon . A view of a small piece of Hell's Gate demonstrating why shipping did not attempt to go further up-river. There are several miles of this and worse. The HB Company’s steamer SS Beaver was the first having entered Pacific waters in 1835. She supplied trade goods to the various posts – Fort Langley , Hope and Fort V...