During railway construction, the meat company owned by Patrick Burns (1856–1937) unloaded cattle near McBride at the junction of Dominion Creek and the Fraser River. The cattle were rafted down from Tête Jaune Cache, near the slaughterhouse at Swift Creek. The Ontario-born cattle king made his fortune supplying meat to the construction camps.

Burns came west in 1878, and established a slaughter-house in Calgary in 1890. His company became one of the largest meat-packing businesses in the world, with branches in London, Liverpool, and Yokohama. In 1931 he was summoned to the Canadian Senate, but relinquished his seat in 1936. He died at Calgary.