The dude ranch featured in this travelogue clip is the Flying U Guest Ranch at Green Lake, B.C., 21 kilometres northeast of 70 Mile House. The Flying U is one of the oldest and best known guest ranches in British Columbia. The central ranch house was built in 1862. Purchased by the Boyd family in 1883, the property was turned into a guest ranch by Jack Boyd in the early 1920s. At the time this footage was shot, in the 1950s, the ranch was being operated by Mr. and Mrs. Bert Gammie.
Writing in the Kerrisdale Courier (2 August 1956), Chuck Bayley highlighted the Flying U with “a recommendation for young cowboys and dudes who dream of riding saddle over rolling cattle country.”
The source film is Legend of the West, directed by Richard L. Colby, and released in 1956 by the British Columbia Government Travel Bureau. Incidentally, all of these BC government travelogue clips were included in the DVD Evergreen Playland: A Road Trip through British Columbia (RBCM, 2008).
For a full archival description of Legend of the West, click here.
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