Tom Perkins

Tom Perkins

Tom Perkins was born in Regina, SA 24 March 1917. His father was Henry George Perkins and his mother Eleanor. Henry Perkins was born in Worcester, England.

Tom grew up on a Saskatchewan farm and lived in that province until 1927 when the family moved to Vancouver. He served in the Canadian Army during the war and on release in 1945 came to the Cariboo on a Greyhound bus. His first job was on a haying crew at the 105 Mile Ranch but later became a logger. In 1946 he bought his Buffalo Creek place on a VLA grant. There were 320 acres, 13 cows and 4 horses and he called it the Flying Arrow Ranch. He eventually cleared 200 acres and ran a 154 head of breeding stock. Every fall he would ship his calves and branded in June every year. The ranch was sold in 1965.

The ranch was located on the corner of the Buffalo Lake and Forest Grove roads. He could walk to 100 Mile in 3 hours. To make ends meet he worked for Gordon Graham in a sawmill and established the Buffalo Creek store. He recalls being paid 90 cents an hour. In addition to the store he built a 3 bedroom frame house in 1949. There was a telephone at the store and the power came in 1957.

Logging in those days was horse logging and the logs were loaded onto flat bed trucks. They could cut 4 or 5 loads of lumber a day all of which were hauled to Exeter and put on the train. Local roads were poor particularly in the spring of the year.

In 1945 when Tom Perkins came to the Cariboo he remembers that there was lots of game but he feels that the game was seriously impacted when the season was opened on does and cow moose. Winters in the 1940s and 1950s were much colder and it was not unusual to have 40 F or 50 F below zero days. When it was cold they would stay up all night just to keep the fires going. For recreation they would listen to the radio and attend dances in Forest Grove.

He tells the story of a little fawn which turned up one day and hung around. The next day it was still there so he raised it. When it was mature it became a real pest as it go into the garden and once even ate the Christmas cake. It wasn’t very popular. One day it broke its leg and Bob Parkin set it and put a cast on but it didn’t heal properly. The dog and the deer became quite protective of each other but eventually the deer wandered off and was probably shot.