The Anahim Nimpo Lake Region

"I believe we need a Rodeo" - Stan Dowling 1938

Anahim Lake and Nimpo Lake are two small communities about 15 miles from each other. The community of Nimpo Lake actually only consists of a general store with fuel, and a restaurant that is now used as a church, with most community members located on properties around the lake. Anahim Lake is a larger community supporting three stores, two gas bars, and two restaurants. Here you'll find an RCMP Detachment and medical clinic as well as a First Nations Reserve.

The first people in the area were the Aborigines that were scattered through the area living off the land. There was extensive trade between them, the Coastal Indians and bands farther inland. Natives here traded obsidian, furs and soapberries (prized for making what was known as Indian Icecream) to Coastal Indians in exchange for ooligans, their grease, dried salmon and berries.

The Hudson Bay Company located one of the first trade stores in BC not far from Anahim Lake itself. As a small number of white settlers moved in and took up ranching, so too did many of the native families, taking cattle in exchange for erecting log buildings and fences for the ranchers. The region had a long history of native peoples and settlers working together and many of the new families would not have survived without the knowledge and help of the natives.
Some of the original families that came into the country upward of a hundred years ago are still here today, their past exploits legendary.

In the early 1930's a man named Stan Dowling started a store at a place called Cahoose Flats just east of Anahim Lake. Then in 1938 he bought the old Hudson's Bay property and moved the store to the center of the Anahim Lake frontier community. There was little in the way of a road from Tatla Lake to Anahim Lake and so anyone traveling usually used horses, or teams and wagons. Stan was the first to bring a truck over the road from Vancouver, then Williams Lake, to Anahim with the purpose of hauling freight and literally built the last section of road from Tatla Lake to Anahim Lake himself so that he could get his truck through. His worst trip was in March of 1937 while hauling freight from Williams Lake to Anahim Lake through howling wind and drifts. It took him nine days with the help of several ranchers along the way and some that rode out from Anahim Lake to help him.

Stan Dowling started the first post office in Anahim Lake as well as the store, and with the help of local ranchers, put on the first Stampede in June of 1938. Since there were no chutes that first year, the wild horses were snubbed to a cowboy's saddle horn and the contestants were handed the halter rope. The bareback horses had to be thrown and then the contestants got on as the horse got up.

By 1939, Dowling and other Stampede enthusiasts, put on another stamped after going 'modern' and building corrals and bucking chutes. They ran the horse races down the main street and local talent provided music for the dances held in the evening. Pan Phillips tricked his hands and some native families into building a road over the mountains so that his bunch and that from Batnuni could attend it. The Anahim Lake Stampede has become more and more famous as the years have gone by and is still held at the Stampede grounds in Anahim Lake, usually on the weekend after the Williams Lake Stampede is held in July.

Both Anahim Lake and Nimpo Lake cater to visitors that have been coming to the region for years, mostly for its fantastic fishing, but of late for all the other activities available to the adventurer. Nimpo Lake is considered the "Floatplane Capital of BC" and has long been the jumping off point to remote lakes and rivers, glaciers, mountains and alpine only accessible by plane.

Our wildlife is abundant, providing numerous photographic opportunities, we've miles of wilderness to be hiked and explored, and fishing as varied as you could possibly want for wild Rainbow Trout, Kokanee, Char, Bulltrout, Steelhead and Salmon. Here you could fish every day and never fish the same waterway twice!

Several operators use Anahim Lake and Nimpo Lake as a jumping off point whether it's to a remote fishing lodge, outfitter and pack trip provider into the Itcha Illgatchuz Range or Rainbow Mountains, or overnight stay with a botanist and author high in the mountains.

There are parks, including Tweedsmuir Park, BC's largest, nearby as well as the Charlotte Alplands and Itcha Illgatchuz Park, offering a unique vacation experience in summer or winter.

Operators - Anahim/Nimpo Region