The series was a deliberate antithesis to the dominant North American television genre of the 1960s: the television western. It was set in the Chilcotin region of modern British Columbia. Guns were used for hunting only and were seldom seen. Horses and overused tractors shared the fields. The stories were told by a gently humorous narrator who ran the general store. Reflecting Canada’s different culture and history, there were no stagecoach robberies, range wars, or wagon trains fending off hostile Indians with the help of the cavalry. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were introduced in one episode, they were parodied. There were no prim school marms or whores with hearts of gold. The women were occasionally in the foreground but only as full partners to the men—and they never needed rescue.

The series introduced actor Chief Dan George as Ol’ Antoine and was distinguished in the 1960s by the fact that all actors representing Indian characters were members of the First Nations. Cariboo Country was shot in black and white in documentary style without programmatic music or rapid edits. It used laconic but superbly allusive dialogue, marked by silences and honed by St. Pierre’s ear for dialect.

Notable episodes included the historical flashback called “The Strong Ones,” about the reaction of a young man to the fact that his Indian mother and her children—who are involved in an “up-country” relationship with a successful rancher—are suddenly displaced by a “suitable” bride from the East. Another episode, “One Small Ranch,” documents the struggles of Smith, a recurring character, and his wife to survive harsh weather, low prices, and government interference on their marginal ranch. It also explains with ironic humor why they refuse to sell it to wealthy hunters from “outside.” In “Sarah’s Copper,” a young couple eventually refuse to sell a precious artifact—a “copper,” which signifies for Northwest Coast aboriginal peoples wealth, prestige, and an honorable history—to a white collector for his apartment wall. Their choice is made more difficult because it means they will have to do without a new truck. “All Indian,” like Keatley’s Beachcombers, tried to be authentic and responsive to concerns about cultural appropriation long before the term was widely used. This episode refuted the myth that “all Indians are the same” by showing a cross-cultural conflict between a husband from the Cariboo and his coast Salish wife who is “kidnapped” by her people to become a spirit dancer. The episode included a trailer pointing out that none of the dances shown were authentic. Other episodes looked at an old rancher who competes in the rodeo until it kills him, and at the conflict between a métis and his wife who bears him an imperfect child and then leaves him. Like most of the episodes of Cariboo Country, few of these had linear plots or neatly wrapped endings.

Three specials were developed from the series. The award-winning The Education of Phyllistine (pulled together from two half-hour episodes) not only explains the roots of the heedless racism that drives an Indian child out of a small rural school but also explores the relationship between the child and Ol’ Antoine, her grandfather. The second, How to Break a Quarterhorse, was commissioned for the prestigious anthology Festival during the 1967 centennial. It is a story of justice Cariboo style—the recent history of exploitation and racism that motivates a murder is taken into account when a fugitive surrenders after ten years on the run, and he is acquitted by a Cariboo jury. The story’s other plotline focuses on how Smith, Ol’ Antoine’s old friend, gets involved in the outcome of the case. After a less-successful third drama special, Sister Balonika, Keately moved on to Beachcombers, while St. Pierre continued to write short stories about the Cariboo.

St. Pierre and Keately enjoyed the freedom of being away from Toronto, production headquarters of English Canada, and were thus able to make filmed drama when it was not usually done. Cariboo Country was broadcast on CBC-owned stations only and then was presented as part of The Serial (despite the fact that each episode was self-sufficient). It remains one of the very best works of television created in English Canada on the CBC or the private networks.