VAVENBY, B.C. – The richness of history is treasured at Aveley Ranch that was homesteaded in 1906 by Theodore Moilliet.
His grandchildren, Ian, June and Valeriana, continue the tradition of raising sheep, caring for the land and raising a new generation of producers in east-central British Columbia.
The family has raised Corriedale sheep on the ranch near Vavenby since 1913 and today three households live on the 2,000 acre spread named after their grandfather’s home village of Aveley near London, England.
Ian and his wife, Karen, have raised seven children and this summer their oldest son, Adam, and his wife, Crystal, plan to return to open a fourth home once he completes studies in social work.
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June Moilliet, a nurse, and Val’s husband, John Gerber, work off the farm but are available for chores. Another sister, Jacqueline, lives in Calgary.
The flock has about 1,000 ewes and Val is the main shepherd. Times turned hard when BSE closed markets and there were no buyers for their fat lambs.
“I called feedlots everywhere,” said Ian. He eventually found a Manitoba buyer who bought their 1,500 lambs for 50 cents a pound.
“We had lambs we couldn’t sell and that following year we had hay that was worth more than the ewes we were feeding it to. We have struggled ever since,” said Val.
“The year BSE hit, Ian had set us up to have the best year ever on the ranch. The price dropped by half overnight,” she said.
Most of the sheep are sold to feedlots, go straight to slaughter or get direct marketed to local customers or restaurants.
The flock has been as large as 1,400 ewes but the family has decided to scale back to less than 900 due to poor prices and high costs.
“We are trying to find that balance where you actually make some money and where the cost is,” said Karen.
The white faced Corriedales average a 150 percent lamb crop. With such a large flock, the Moilliets breed their own replacement ewes and rams and sell some breeding stock.
Terminal rams like Rambouillet, Dorset or Suffolks have been introduced although they prefer the Corriedale because it produces a heavier, meaty lamb with good wool and the animals instinctively flock together so they are easier to manage with dogs and a single shepherd.
As much as the family loved the sheep, they realized after 2003 they had to find off-farm income to ease their cash flow problems. Merging their appreciation of local history and the clean landscape with mountains, trees and creeks, they decided to open the ranch to tourists.
Diversification is hard work.
“When I look back at what we did 10 years ago with our lambs, it was a cinch,” said Karen.
“People are way more work and you have to have a whole crew just to do the tourism part,” said Val.
Still, they appreciate being able to share the rural life with entire generations who have no farm experiences.
“For them it is a novelty, as much for the parents as the kids,” Val said.
Marketing farm tours and the bed-and-breakfast remain a challenge because of their distance from a large population basis.
Vavenby is a two hour drive north of Kamloops and they are 10 minutes off Highway 5. They are listed with tourist associations, the internet and other advertising and have increasing numbers of drop-in guests who saw the B & B highway signs. They also offer camping and day trips following the shepherd in the high country.
Guest reviews from people from as far away as New Zealand have been positive and the affable family members all participate in showing newborn baby chicks and lambs and helping guests scramble up a 100-year-old ladder to view the hay loft while they receive a history lesson.
Old buildings have been restored and preserved to tell people about area history. A century ago the only way out was by canoe, paddle wheeler down the North Thompson River or down winding mountain trails in wagons.
With family photos and a rich oral history, they tell the story of grandfather Moilliet who brought his English bride, Mary, to the homestead in wild, uncleared country. It is a story of perseverance where Theodore carved out a life with his brother Jack, his uncle Hyde Finley and for a time, a Chinese labourer named Chow Sang. Jack died at Vimy Ridge and had no children.
A favourite family story describes their grandmother’s first pregnancy on a remote ranch where there were no midwives, doctors or neighbours.
The only way out in November 1909 was to head for Kamloops by bundling the eight month pregnant Mary into a dugout canoe while Theodore and Jack helped her travel down river until they hit dangerous ice floes. They barely managed to get around the ice and ended up finding someone on the trail with horses who agreed to take her to hospital. That trip ended up taking two weeks by canoe, sled and stoneboat, a sledge that can run on the bare ground. Their first son, Ted, was born two weeks later.
They returned and eventually two more children were born. The second child, Jack, took over the ranch and was the father of Ian, June and Val.
A store and post office were built on the ranch with supplies and mail delivered by paddle wheeler.
The modern Moilliet family is amazed and proud their ancestors survived. Sharing 100 years of tenacity has become their motivation to hold onto the ranch.
“Here we have this history and people will pay now to see history,” said Val.
“We all want it to survive. It is rewarding when you see hundreds of little children running around laughing. Isn’t it wonderful that other people can enjoy this?” she said.
