Bar U Ranch

On 27 August, I finally made myself do a new drive that I hadn't had the courage to do before, going south of the city. This morning, I have just added another 8 photos taken that day.

The trip down south was not a huge drive and many of the roads were familiar ones. Just the last part was what made me afraid to try. I am so glad I did this, as I had longed to go to this particular Ranch for years. A couple of years ago, a friend and I drove south from the city to get to Kananaskis. Somehow, he missed a turn-off and we ended up going some distance south instead of west. I loved the scenery that we were driving through and I noticed the Ranch off in the distance. I was determined that, one day, I would drive there myself. Done!

The working Ranch I wanted to see was the Bar U Ranch. I have seen so many photos online of the scattered sheds/barns and I was sure I would find plenty to photograph.

"Bar U cattle literally fed the world. The ranch fed workers building the first transcontinental railway and waves of immigrants flooding to a new land.

It fed Canada’s first Indian reservations, the first patrols of Northwest Mounted Police, our nation through the Great Depression and our soldiers through two World Wars. Bar U Percherons, “the work horses that powered North America,” built our cities and roads and pulled our trolleys and fire wagons, from New York City to Victoria, British Columbia.

One of the first, most successful, most enduring large scale cattle ranching operations in Canada, the Bar U in its hay day ranged 30,000 head of cattle on 160,000 acres of grassland, and was world renowned for its stock of 1,000 purebred Percherons.

Located deep in the southern Alberta foothills, on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the Bar U, from 1882 to 1950, was a force to be reckoned with. While other large Alberta ranches succeeded for a time only to go out of business, especially after the killer winters of 1886 and 1906, the Mighty Bar U persevered to eventually become a kingpin in a business empire that included a variety of ranches and farming enterprises, as well as meat packing plants and flour mills."

www.friendsofthebaru.com/bar_u_legacy.htm

By the time three and a quarter hours had passed by at the Ranch, including sitting on a log around a camp fire, drinking hot coffee and chatting with a couple of ladies who were telling me about camp life in the old days, I felt it was time to start heading back home. I returned via the rough, gravel, very dusty backroad that I use when I drive to Kananaskis, hoping that I might just see something of interest, but out of luck.

Thank goodness for Albums to keep photos together, and thank goodness Camera Roll is now finally back and working. Thank you, Flickr staff, for rebuilding this very useful tool for us.