When Gerry Bracewell arrived in the Tatlayoko valley in the 1940’s to work for KB Moore on the Circle X Ranch she immediately knew she was home. KB went on to train Gerry and she became the first female hunting guide of British Columbia. She continued for 75 years to set standards for all women who wanted to become guides. KB also taught her a lot about ranching, the climax of which was letting her go on beef drives with her friend and Moore’s daughter, Isobel. Together they would guide a large herd of Hereford cattle from the Tatlayoko ranch to Williams Lake, approximately 200 miles away, to sell them just like the cowboys. In total it took the women just under 20 days to get to Williams Lake and seven days to return home again after the auction. On their way they experienced range of new things and encountered obstacles to overcome, like the suspension bridge over the Fraser River. In order to cross the bridge they had to divide the herd in to groups of 15 cattle and keep calm while the bridge was swinging. In addition to everything else a cowboy needs, the women also packed their ball gowns for the Klondike Night celebration, which was a celebration to show appreciation for the ranching industry. After the auction they won a prize for the best group of ten Hereford yearling steers.<\/p>\n
When Gerry Bracewell was 31 years old and a single mother, she drove to the end of the dirt road at Anahim Lake and then continued to ride two horses to see the construction site of the Bella Coola Highway in order to document the historic event with her fixed-lens, windup 8 mm movie camera. It was here that she met Alf Bracewell, whom she married and had two sons with. In remembrance of him and his achievements with the Bella Coola Highway, she named a mountain range in his honour after his passing in 2006.<\/p>\n
In the 1960’s Gerry Bracewell took on the fight for a better school in the Tatlayoko valley. Due to their remote location, Gerry had to drive both her two sons and the neighbour’s children six miles each way everyday with their tractor in order for them to get to school. When the Williams Lake School District held a meeting for all the schools in the area that were not thoroughly organized by the school district, Gerry attended with photographs of the cookshack built by the Lignum’s Mill, which served as a school building at that time. At the meeting she suggested that Lignum’s Mill construct another school building. The officials wanted to see plans so Gerry bought graph paper and began drawing up a map. The map included information about where all the different children of different ages lived and suggested putting the nine and ten graders into one school and the rest into another school to shorten the travel distance. The board was impressed and granted the building of the school. Upon completion they had a total of three teachers, one for the upper grades and two for the lower grades. The school had a health room and a library and it soon became the community centre hosting social events and various entertainment.<\/p>\n
Gerry’s two sons from her second marriage, Kevan and Alex, built the Bracewell’s Alpine Wilderness Adventure Lodge at Tatlayoko Lake which remains in business and is run by Kevan’s brother Alex with Gerry’s assistance. In 2004, Gerry was inducted into the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame as a Pioneer Rancher and in 2015, at the age of 92 she released her first book Gerry, Get Your Gun<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In 2016 she was awarded the Legacy award by the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. as recognition for being the first female guide outfitter, the oldest guide outfitter still in business and for owning the longest running family guide outfitting business. The family business has been running since 1918.<\/p>\n
History sources<\/p>\n
When Gerry Bracewell arrived in the Tatlayoko valley in the 1940’s to work for KB Moore on the Circle X Ranch she immediately knew she was home. KB went on to train Gerry and she became the first female hunting guide of British Columbia. She continued for 75 years to set standards for all women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/76\/revisions\/400"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevanbracewell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}