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CASUAL COUNTRY 2013 - 37
Out West
Road runs west bus service finally arrives Hank Van Tamelen Casual Country 2013 In 1972 I went camping with Dennis Murray and his family. He was a pipeline welding inspector and bus driving was my chosen work and lifestyle. We both had a mutual desire to move to central west B.C. and on that camping trip discussed a way that goal might be achieved. I wanted to operate a small bus line where it was needed. The 300 mile stretch of Highway 20 from Williams Lake to Bella Coola was the only highway in B.C. from the interior to the coast with no bus services. So we decided to check it out. After much preparation and red tape we were granted a licence to go. We figured Cariboo West Stages was the correct name.
I lived in Grande Prairie, Alta. at the time and drove for Canadian Coachways in the north from 1959 to 1973. My new partner, Dennis, lived in Ft. St. John and worked for North American Inspections. In early 1973 I moved to Williams Lake and acquired a 1953 Prevost 33-passenger bus and started two trips per week from Williams Lake to Anahim Lake for the first while and then on to Bella Coola. Our schedule was to leave Williams Lake for Bella Coola on Mondays and return Tuesdays; then leave for Bella Coola again on Thursdays, returning on Fridays. A while after the schedule was established Dennis moved to Williams Lake and we bought a 1950s something ex-military bus. Soon after we were hired to carry high school dorm students
Photo submitted
Cariboo West Stages owner and driver Hank Van Tamelen (right) prepares for a trip out west with a couple of passengers. from Anahim Lake on Sunday afternoons with pickups east to Tatla Lake and on to the Williams Lake High-school dormitory. On Fridays we picked students up after school and took them back home for the
weekend. We replaced the Prevost in about a year with a Western Flyer Canuck (1966 I think). The Canucks were designed by Western Flyer in Manitoba for Canadian Coachways.
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They were used mainly for the Alaska Highway. They were 33-passenger buses with rear curbside door freight sheds, plus baggage compartments underneath the bus. I was very familiar
with these buses having driven them since they were new. Over the years, we wore out and replaced about three Canucks. We also bought an M.C.I. MC5 for charter work, etc. We did quite a charter business in addition to our Bella Coola Run. We also did Greyhound overloads and did our own maintenance. The Chilcotin Road was about four times as rough as the Alaska Highway (no kidding) and we broke and wore out pretty well everything possible. Our package express brought in almost as much revenue as passenger tickets on the west run. We hauled a heck of a lot of parts for haying machines and almost anything of reasonable size you can imagine. About our second year, we bid on and were awarded the mail
contract from Williams Lake to Bella Coola, which sure helped pay for the fuel and tires. We met some of the best down-to-earth people in the mid-west. We never left anyone in Williams Lake because they didn’t have enough money left to go home. I don’t think we lost $200 in “jawbone” in 10 years. Chilcotin people would always remember and go out of their way to pay for their ride. I will never forget Bella Coola, the beautiful valley and the people, or the “Hill” — chains mandatory up and down in the winter. Ya’ gotta’ see it to believe it. In 1985 I left Dennis with a new partner and left the area to help out my ailing and aging parents. I’m not sure how long Cariboo West continued to operate.
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