Dick Bradley
Dick and Hugh Bradley grew up on a farm in Alberta and Dick was a graduate of the Olds Agricultural College. In [1953], J.C. Wilkinson decided to sell the Pelly River farm and he approached Hugh who was working at the Haines Junction experimental farm. Hugh contacted his brother Dick and they bought the farm with two friends [John Stelfox and Buck Goodwin].1)
In April 1954, Dick came up the Overland Trail from Minto Landing and crossed the Pelly River with equipment and supplies. In June, Hugh and Buck walked in from Pelly Crossing on the North Klondike Highway with four cattle.2) The brothers had $2.53 between them, and they started raising pigs with one sow and a boar. For about five years they sold milk to pay for groceries until their herd of cattle was built up.3)
Ken Bradley arrived in the Yukon in 1959 and he worked and farmed in Haines Junction and Carmacks before joining his brothers at the Pelly River Ranch in 1961. Ken's son Dale was just an infant then and he grew up on the farm.4) The Bradley’s raised only Herefords for years, wintering about fifty and butchering the rest for sale. Salmon, garden produce, and berries provided more than 500 jars of preserves each year. Chickens and rabbits augmented their food supply and eggs, potatoes, and garden vegetables were cash crops. They grew fields of oats, wheat, hay and rye for farm use, and had experimental plots of wheat, oats, and barley for the Experimental Farm at Beaverlodge, Alberta after the experimental farm near Haines Junction closed down. They drove twenty-six miles from Minto and freighted everything across the Pelly River until 1967 when they built a thirty-two-mile bush road from Pelly Crossing.5)
In the early 1960s, Marjorie Lucknow was a nurse in Ontario with a curious patient who persuaded her to write to the Ranch owners on his behalf. Marjorie addressed the letter to Dick, the oldest brother, and they started a long lasting correspondence. In 1973, Marjorie moved to the Yukon with her young son Glen, and married Dick the day after she arrived. Marjorie described the brothers' attitude as being one straight line, never showing undue happiness, anger, frustration or discouragement, but always with a dry sense of humour.6)
Dale Bradley bought Dick's share in the Pelly River Ranch when Dick retired in April 1990. Dale ran the ranch with Hugh until Hugh died in 2012 and then Dale and his wife Sue became the main owners.7)