Take a drive up the eastern bench above the Southern Okanagan wine Mecca of Oliver, B.C., and you’re sure to spot some wild horses among the sagebrush and arid, sloping hillsides.
You’re not seeing things. Turns out there have been free roaming horses in the Oliver area for a long, long time. On a recent drive through the area on a scorching hot summer’s afternoon in late August, we spotted a small band of horses by the side of the Mount Baldy access road.
It was a thin but healthy mare, two yearlings and a muscular, wary stallion, who each continued to graze by the side of the road when we slowed down to take some photos.
Entranced by their wild beauty, we slowly got out of the car, and walked as close as we dared. The stallion kept close watch, but didn’t budge from the shoulder of the opposite side of the road. The mare trotted a safe distance away, where she grazed on desert grasses for a few minutes, until her colts decided they were too nervous to stay with the stallion on the roadway and eventually joined her.
The origins of Oliver’s wild horses lie inside a blend of oral history, rumour and local aboriginal tradition. According to a March 25, 2009 article in the Oliver Chronicle, some say they’re feral horses whose ancestors were domesticated horses that escaped or were released into the wild. Others say they’re truly wild, and still others believe they’re privately owned. 
The truth is probably a combination of all three. Whatever the origin story, today hundreds of wild horses are roaming around on Osoyoos indian reserve and Crown land in the area, and occasionally wandering onto private property in search of food, depending on the season. Current estimates suggest there are as many as 350 horses roaming on a 50,000 acre range.
According to rancher and band member Aaron Stelkia, wild horses used to roam throughout the region before European settlers arrived, the article continues.
“The Okanagan natives were horsemen,” he told the Chronicle. “After the Second World War, the government put a bounty on wild horses. People shot them and cut the horses’ ears off as proof.” Over the years, the First Nations people added stallions to improve the breed, he said. “They are wild horses by history, but now there’s probably very little of the wild horses left. Over the years, some [domestic] horses escaped, some were turned loose.”
Stelkia said his people used to catch wild horses, sell them for meat or bucking horses, and sell the best ones as saddle horses – until the market crashed three years ago.
“Now, wild horses aren’t worth catching anymore.” Sadly, some of the horses have trouble finding enough food over the winter, and become thin and unhealthy-looking, causing concern among local residents.
