The History of Wells Gray Guest Ranch

These photographs, taken in 1918, are of Lewis Ruppel and his homestead — the site of what is now Wells Gray Ranch.

Lewis Ruppel was born on June 6, 1889, near Copper Hill, New Jersey. His father, Clark Ruppel, was killed in a train accident when Lewis was 2 years old, and the child was raised by his grandmother.

Lewis left home at 16, and worked in a wide variety of jobs and places as he traveled through the States and Canada: as a coal-miner, ranch-hand, and logger. He enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in 1918, but was discharged because of a leg injury. Traveling west again, he found work in the Lydia Mines near Birch Island. Here he learned that land was available in the Upper Clearwater to "returned men", men back from military service in the Great War.

Filing for homestead on the SW 1/4 of District Lot 2888 KDYD, Lewis paid the princely sum of $10 for the 160 acres that would be his home for the next 50 years.

Lewis built his first house near the west boundary of his land, close to the old pack-trail that provided access into the valley at that time. He built a solid log barn, and constructed a large and sturdy root-cellar in which to store garden produce for the winter months. It was to the root-cellar that Lewis and neighbour Henry Desfosses fled when the great fire of July 1926 roared through the Clearwater Valley. The fire mercifully spared Lewis' home and barn, — so he promptly invited his less-fortunate neighbours, the Ludtke family, to move in with him until they could rebuild their devastated home.

On July 6, 1928, Lewis married Rena Peterson of Craigmyle, Alberta. Their son, Clark, was born in 1932.

The Ruppel homestead became a fine example of a well-kept farm, with a year's supply of wood split and neatly stacked, large house, ample barn, well-kept fences, and productive gardens. The house was built with the able assistance of their neighbours, Jack Hymers, Jack Tunningly, and Jack Norman. The cedar puncheon floor, smoothed with adzes by Hymers and Norman, was much appreciated as a favourite dance-floor by the rest of the community. It was Rena who planted the spruce and cottonwood saplings that still grace the front yard of what is now the Wells Gray Ranch.

Lewis farmed with horses, great Clydes and Belgians whose size and strength complemented that of Lewis himself. He was one of a very few who made his entire living from his homestead. He had run a trapline up Battle Mountain, but sold it to Everett Strom in the early 1940s. Lewis had a small herd of milk-cows, and sold cream to buy those things he could not produce for himself.

Rena died of cancer in 1946. Clark suffered from failing vision, and went to the Jericho School in Vancouver where he became completely blind. In 1949, Lewis placed an ad in the Free Press for a housekeeper. Rose Williams answered that ad, and began a career of work and companionship, staying with Lewis when he sold his homestead to an American couple in 1970. Lewis and Rose moved to Birch Island, and Lewis' last years were made glorious with the purchase of a 3-wheeled bicycle that he loved to ride. Lewis died in June of 1974; he is buried beside Rena in the Kamloops cemetery.

Lewis lives on, in the stories and memories of Clearwater Valley old timers. Recalled with great affection, everyone has at least one favourite tale about Lewis — calling an escaped piglet he was trying to catch, playing softball at our community picnic in July (in Lewis' unused pasture, neatly mowed for the occasion), or telling stories from his youth when he worked on a ranch in Montana.

My favourite memory is when Lewis danced the Rain Dance for us. It was his 70th birthday, so the neighbours had gathered at Lewis' place with a pot-luck dinner and birthday cake to celebrate. Being a farming/ranching community, talk soon drifted to the weather, and the desperate need for rain. Irrigation was unheard-of, and we trusted to God to send the rain when it was needed. Lewis considered the facts, and announced that he could do the Rain Dance, having learned it from Indians he had stayed with in Montana. Totally unselfconscious and with a childlike simplicity, Lewis danced for us, for the crops, and for the rain gods. By the time we left for home, the skies had darkened, and rain was beginning to fall.

— Ellen Helset Ferguson, September 28, 1996
From Raland Neaves' "Exploring Wells Gray Park"