Canning Stock Route - History

History

In Western Australia at the beginning of the 20th century, east Kimberley cattlemen were looking for a way to traverse the western deserts of Australia with their cattle as a way to break a west Kimberley monopoly that controlled the supply of beef to Perth and the goldfields in the south of the state. East Kimberley cattle were infested with Boophilus ticks infected with a malaria-like parasitic disease called Babesiosis and were prohibited from being transported to southern markets by sea due to a fear that the ticks would survive the journey and spread. This gave west Kimberley cattlemen a monopoly on the beef trade and resulted in high prices.

With east Kimberley cattlemen keen to find a way to get their cattle to market, and the Government of Western Australia keen for competition to bring prices down, a 1905 proposal of a stock route through the desert was taken seriously. James Isdell, an east Kimberley pastoralist and member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, proposed the stock route arguing that ticks would not survive in the dry desert climate on the trip south.