Historic foothills cattle drives brought to life on film

Change is bound to happen, and that’s as true on a foothills cattle ranch as it is anywhere else. 

A film originally released over 50 years ago about cattle ranching in the Alberta foothills has been digitized and released by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). 

How Things Have Changed compares cattle ranching at the turn of the 20th century with ranching in the early 1970s. Directed by Jerry Krepakevich, the film is set in the Alberta foothills and mentions the Bar U Ranch and the Rio Alto Ranch.

Steve Fisher, director of Friends of the Bar U, had a chance to watch the nine-minute film that was released in 1971 and said it reminds him of growing up west of Millarville around the same time. 

“Looking back at some of that film, I was riding horses, probably, you know, when I was six or seven with my father,” he said. 

“It was kind of nice to see the old trucks, and the less fences, the less acreages, and you know, those big open prairies.” 

The film’s synopsis talks of cattle-liners moving livestock to the summer range, contrasted with archival photographs of the old days when cowboys drove herds long distances and spent long days in the saddle. 

The black-and-white photographs, and narration from un-named cowboys, gives a glimpse of foothills ranching long ago. It’s contrasted with colour video of a typical 1970s ranch family moving cattle on horseback and by truck. 

The film reminds Fisher of his own childhood and of a peaceful, easier time of living. With roots dating to 1883, a year after the Bar U formed, Fisher is the fourth generation of his family to live in the area. 

“You were more present, back then, with the people that you were surrounded by,” he said. “I thought it’s a good time in my life.” 

Founded in 1882 as the Northwest Cattle Company, the Bar U Ranch was one of the first large ranches in the Canadian West, and it remained a leading ranch in Canada until 1950, when pieces of it were sold off to area ranchers. 

At its peak, Fisher said, the Bar U Ranch grazed cattle on 160,000 acres and boasted a herd of 1,000 Percheron horses. 

Today, the ranch is a national historic site on 367 acres with a cavvy of seven Percherons. 

As documented in the film, horses remain an important part of working cattle on a ranch.

“They're still moving cattle with horses, they're still doing branding with horses, and labour that way,” Fisher said. 

Growing up around ranchers and cowboys, Fisher said those who worked around cattle had a lot of character. Some of that character can be seen in the photos and heard in the narration featured in the film. 

“All my dad's friends, they all had these interesting characteristics about them,” Fisher said. “There was not one person that wasn't a character.” 

The film came out in 1971, and there have been many changes on the ranch since then, especially in the economic landscape of the cattle industry. 

Although cattle prices paid to the rancher have approximately doubled since the ’70s, a rancher's costs have risen much more than that, Fisher said. 

In his youth, his family's herd peaked at 200 head, and that supported a family of five.  

“I would say that would be harder to do now,” he said. 

Those rising costs have an impact on family ranches. 

“If there's no money in an industry, people leave,” Fisher said. 

He explained that a Calgary Herald article from October 3, 1978, told of feeder calves being sold for 99.5 cents per pound, and said that in 2021, the price had risen to about $2.04 per pound. 

That increase, more than double, has not kept up with inflation, Fisher said, and cattle producers are having a hard time keeping up. 

The Statistics Canada Consumer Price Index shows that a fixed basket of consumer goods costs 3.4 times today what it would have cost in 1978. 

Camilo Martín-Flórez, PhD, and NFB collection curator, said there are not many films about ranching in Alberta, and How Things Have Changed is special for its rarity and also because the soundtrack was composed especially for the film.

“You can never go back and do a documentary film about how life was in the 1970s in Alberta,” Martín-Flórez said. 

“It’s precious. It depicts the people, the cowboys, living in Alberta at that time.” 

The film is available on the NFB website at www.nfb.ca. 

The channel NFB from coast-to-coast: Spotlight on the West is devoted to the Canadian West. It highlights films featuring the people, landscapes and filmmakers from British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Overall, the NFB has digitized about 6,000 films from its collection of 80,000 and is working to digitize more titles.