Some background:

• Pruden Pass is the gap between Mara Mountain and Wheeler Mountain.
• The first homesteader in the area was a man named Wheeler in 1876.
• Under the Dominion Lands Act of 1872, lands were made available for homesteading.
  • Some of the next homesteaders of the area were the Prudens (1912), the Masseys, the Harris’s, and the Damgaards.
  • A school was built and was used from 1915 – 1916 as a school, but as a meeting place afterward.
  • With WW1 and drought years in the 1920’s most left the homesteads, except for the Prudens.
  • The school building was sold in the 1930s.
  • Many of the lands were bought by Tranquille or by ranchers.
  • The Prudens have owned the land continuously for 110 years.
  • In 1996, most of the land in the area was made into Provincial Park lands, except for two parcels, the Pruden and the Frolek quarters.
  • Many Frolek lands in the Lac du Bois area were sold and incorporated into the Nature Conservancy of Canada (not BC Parks) and the Froleks still retain grazing rights on those lands.
  • The Pruden Pass Road is a public road through the park, but BC Parks makes decisions about access, as needed.    The section through Pruden lands is not open by choice of the landowner.

Access

• Access from the west or east is on a rough road.    This was once a cart road between Tranquille, the Wheeler Mountain Community, the Lac du Bois Community and North Kamloops.
• From the east a fence is encountered and it is signed.    The east side of the fence is a ranching open range quarter.    The west side of the fence is BC Parks.      The property boundary for Pruden land is 400m past the fence.
• The fenceline at the end of Massey Lake is the border of Pruden lands.
• Access up the back side of Mara or up the Wheeler Mountain Road is inside the Provincial Park.

Sources:

• IMap BC + Land Ownership Layers (BC Government)
• Treasures of Lac du Bois (book no longer in print)
• BC Parks

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Doug Smith

Retired now, I get into the outdoors most days to hike, paddle, camp, snowshoe, run, walk, or explore. More information can be found at: KamloopsTrails.net.

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