Some people have lived in the Cariboo for generations, descendents of First Nations or pioneer families and others grow to love the region in later years.
Gordon Mackey is one of the latter, first travelling to the Cariboo in 1986.
Since that time, he has owned a small ranch in Quesnel, a home at Green Lake and now at 108 Mile Ranch.
Mackey is enthralled with the history of the region and is doing his best to preserve it.
One of the treasures he owns is a pair of Riley & McCormick cowboy boots that must be from the 1920s or '30s. The couple who owned them said they had been grandpa's boots and they always kept them.
Now, Mackey says, those people are getting old and dying off, and their children don't want that stuff anymore.
"They're into computers and what do they want with an old pair of boots, grandfather's or great-grandfather's cowboy boots?"
Another treasure comes from the Cotton Ranch.
Robert Cecil Cotton came from Hampton Court, England to the M.G. Drummond Ranch in the Riske Creek area outside Williams Lake in 1897.After learning the trade, he bought the ranch and
operated it until his death in 1954.
Mrs. R. C. Cotton's angora chaps, embossed with her name, now hang in Mackey's collection.
His rarest artifact is a black leather document or mail case that's also a gun holster.
It comes from a period between 1860 and 1880 and Mackey doesn't know where it came from originally.
The ingenious device held papers in one side and if outlaws attacked the owner could reach into the other side and pull out his Colt 44 for protection.
Mackey says he has only ever seen one other like it and that was about 30 years ago in a gun show in the United States. It was originally owned by the Wells Fargo Company, which operated part of the American Pony Express.
The Grinder family ranched near Clinton since the 1800s and Mackey has an ancient pair of chaps from that ranch.
He has a perfectly preserved saddle believed to be circa 1880s from Norman Hobbis (1904-1995) of Vermilion, Alta.
When he passed away, his possessions came to his family in Horse Lake and Mackey was able to obtain it.
Another saddle with a high back was made by the Great West Saddle Company in Canada between 1900 and 1905.
RCMP and Northwest Mounted Police memorabilia is also part of his collection. It's all original, boots from about the 1940s, a uniform and numerous badges and buttons.
Then there is a short buffalo coat, a buffalo robe and about 35 mounted animal heads, birds and full-sized mounts of a wolf and a lynx.
When asked if there was anything his collection was missing, Mackey says maybe more of the same. However, it didn't take him long to say he would like an original pack saddle.
"I want something that's really old that you can strap on a horse today and you're good to go, something with a little history to it and in good condition.
"The only junk I have is that old saddle laying outside there; that's just a wall hanger for the front deck."
Mackey is best known as an authority on antique guns and is always looking for Winchester rifles and carbines, but they have to be old — from the 1800s.
