The Legendary Betty Frank

She grew up playing on log booms and living in float houses, and at nine years old she learned to shoot a rifle and hunt game. Strong-willed and independent, Betty Frank always had a difficult time following the rules laid down by others. Rather than sit in a classroom and learn the times tables, she preferred to be out roaming the hills with her .22 rifle and bagging grouse. At an early age she dreamed of being a game guide and having her own hunting territory.

In spite of her distaste for sitting still, Betty soon realized that becoming a teacher would take her to the wilderness where the guiding opportunities lay, so she finished school and got her teaching certificate. But the schoolroom was neither adequate nor exciting enough to contain her imagination. Three years into her new career Betty met game guide Alfred Bowe, and from that day forward she followed her dream, embarking on a long and colourful career that spanned five decades.

Betty became a guide outfitter, trapper, shake splitter, dog musher and entrepreneur. Whether it was her penchant for nude sunbathing, popping out of a cake clad in a leopard-skin bikini at a guide-outfitters conference, taking lovers half her age, or living a life uncommon for a woman in the rough and ready Cariboo, Betty Frank made her mark, and throughout her fascinating career she broke all the gender stereotypes.

Sage Birchwater Sage Birchwater is the author of Chiwid (New Star Books) and was the editor and a contributor to Gumption & Grit: Women of the Cariboo Chilcotin (Caitlin Press), and is currently co-authoring a book on bush pilots of the Cariboo Chilcotin region with Chris Harris. Sage was a staff writer for the Williams Lake Tribune until his retirement in March 2009. He still lives in Williams Lake.

Betty Frank Betty Frank grew up in Coastal British Columbia in the logging and fishing community of Owen Bay just off Sonora Island. After an exciting career in the Cariboo, Betty Frank relocated to Quadra Island, but she still takes care of the lodge and cabin on Quesnel Lake where she once guided, trapped and cut shakes years ago.