Company Description

We acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the Syilx Peoples.

Ranch History:

Cornelius O'Keefe was a man with a tremendous drive to make something of his life. Not content to just raise cattle, he was the first rancher in the North Okanagan to open a general store on his property. His ranch became a gathering place for newcomers to the Okanagan Valley and soon was being called "Okanagan."

So it is no surprise that, once British Columbia had joined the Canadian confederation in 1871, the man who rallied the few settlers in the area to ask the Canadian government for a post office was Cornelius O'Keefe. As a result of the petition organized by O'Keefe, the chief postal inspector announced in the Victoria Colonist on August 6, 1872 that he "had made temporary arrangements with Mr. Barnard for a weekly mail service to Kamloops and the Okanagan." On August 14, 1872, the post office was establilshed with Cornelius as postmaster, a position he held for the next 40 years. Once the post office was established at the ranch, the BC Express Stage Lines ran a weekly stagecoach from Cache Creek to the O'Keefe Ranch on the new wagon road from Fort Kamloops.

While there were several ranchers who settled ahead of O'Keefe, his is the only ranch that was still being lived in by the original family 100 years later. Today some of the oldest buildings in the valley are still being used and preserved as part of the O'Keefe Ranch heritage site.

Products & Services

Post Office Service ,   Cowboy Cookouts ,   Team Building Events ,   Trail rides ,   Historic Tours ,   Heritage Site Visits ,   Corporate Retreats ,   Conference Venue ,   Wagon Road Exhibit