Big Bar Guest Ranch

Big Bar Guest Ranch is proudly owned by Stswecemc Xgattem First Nation (SXFN), a community located in a semi-remote area on the the Fraser River, approximately 85 kilometers southwest of Williams Lake. Once two distinct bands, Canoe Creek (Stswecemc) and Dog Creek (Xgattem), our two Secwepemc communities joined together in the late 1800s. We honour our separate histories and our coming together. In the 1860s, more than 10,000 people traversed the Caribou Wagon Roadin search of a new life, land to raise cattle, or a gold strike. Harry Marriott, an immigrant from England, started working for the notorious Gang Ranch, one the largest ranch in Canada. Marriot acquired smaller ranches and land parcels, eventually consolidating them into the O.K Ranching Company, with access over 200,000 acres of cattle country and wilderness. Marriott partnered with his friend and Vancouver banker, George S Harrison and sectioned off 100 acres of their mutual land acquisition for his personal use. This was the beginning of Big Bar Guest Ranch. Much is unchanged since the Harrison family used Big Bar Ranch as their family retreat. The original family home, “The Harrison House”, built in 1936 with logs and stone hewn and selected from the property, continues to provide a cozy retreat for guests on holiday relaxing in the great room in front of the fire place, or playing a cowboy song on the guitar in the music room. Big Bar guests have access to the original acreage of the OK Cattle Company, and can venture out across unspoiled pasture lands and forests. What has changed is that Big Bar Guest Ranch is now a part of our shared community vision of becoming an economically and politically self-sustaining community living Secwepemc culture, language, and traditions in a healthy and safe environment. Stswecemc Xgattem First Nation invites you to Big Bar Guest Ranch to experience the dramatic landscape of traditional SXFN Territory: interlocking valleys and plateaus, situated between bold and snow topped mountain ranges. It is our honour to share history as the original inhabitants of this land and welcome you to life on the ranch.