Douglas Lake Cattle Company has expanded its holdings in the Cariboo Chilcotin with its recent purchase of the Riske Creek Cattle Company’s Cotton and Deer Park Ranches.
“This was sort of the third edition up in the Williams Lake area,” said Joe Gardner, general manager of Douglas Lake Cattle Company. “The Douglas Lake Cattle Company also owns the Alkali Lake Ranch and a couple of years ago we purchased the James Cattle Company at Dog Creek.”
Previous Riske Creek Cattle Company partial owner Grant Huffman is retiring and Steve Brewer, who has worked for Douglas Lake Cattle Company for 18 years, is the new manager, Gardner said.
“Cotton and Deer Park are absolutely beautiful ranches that have been there forever,” Gardner said. “Cotton Ranch is one of the oldest in the province. They’ve both been well cared for.”
When asked about the Douglas Lake Cattle Company’s relationship to Walmart, Gardner described it as a “pretty long stretch.”
Douglas Lake Cattle Company is owned by Stan Kroenke, who also owns ranches, sports teams and other investments in the U.S.
Kroenke is married to Anne Walton a Walmart heiress, Gardner explained.
“Her father was Bud Walton, partner of Sam Walton, the original founders of Walmart. So if his wife counts I guess we’re related to Walmart.
Kroenke has done developments with Walmart and has been on the board, but the ranching side of it is his personal thing.”
With the new ownership of Cotton and Deer Park, Gardner said the public access to the nearby Farwell Canyon area will not be impacted, noting the company has no intention of changing anything at the ranches.
Gardner grew up in Vancouver where his father was the Dean of Forestry at the University of British Columbia.
His own love of ranching began at the age of 16 when he was hired one summer to work at Douglas Lake Cattle Company, by then owner Charles “Chunky” Woodward.
Bit by the ranching bug, he went on to study a master’s degree in animal science at UBC where Huffman was one of his classmates.
Through the 36 years Gardner has managed Douglas Lake its ownership has changed hands.
“At the time I was hired by Chunky I thought I’d be there for a long time with him and here I am a long time later with a different owner and several since,” Gardner said.
In their book, Ranchland, Rick Blacklaws and Diana French said Woodword’s passion for ranching stemmed from spending summers on his maternal grandfather’s Alkali Lake Ranch, which shows another connection.
Aside from managing the company Gardner is also a trustee on Government House Foundation, which he’s been doing since 2012.