Cowboys and Heli-Fun in the Rockies

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Tagging Vegetarians

It’s not branding season, but I do get the chance to tag a new-born calf. Things can get pretty tricky, because mom is the size of a buffalo, and protective of her 3 day-old baby. Tagging is done to keep track of the cattle, and they can roam for weeks before they are herded up again. With mountain lions, wolves and bears in the area, it’s not uncommon for some to go missing. Even bald eagles can swoop in and carry away young calves. Fortunately, mother cow doesn’t attack as I punch a tag into the ear of the baby, number 64. It’s a strange feeling to be so up close and personal (although things would get more personal still) with cows. I enjoy my meat, and somehow we’ve divorced the concept of beef and animal. As human beings, it’s a case of us breeding new life specifically to end it. Vegetarians will no doubt be skipping this entire chapter. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to the processing plant, where these cattle will end up, boxed in and fattened up, before being “processed” into Grade AAA Alberta beef. I wouldn’t do that to myself, or to you. After all, ignorance can be delicious.

Ropeburn on the Eyeball

It is playoff season in the National Hockey League, and Canada all but shuts down when a game is on. Certainly the Word Travels crew heads to the nearest TV when the Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames are playing US counterparts. While Sean, who films games when he’s in Vancouver, rejoices in an early Canucks lead, Erin teaches me the art of the lasso outside. The rope is tough and hard, wiry and not nearly as flexible as I imagined. We set up a practice steer and I learn to swing and release, roping the plastic horns before pulling back to engage the noose. Lucky brand beers are flowing, and before long, things get silly. On camera, we decide to have Bill lassoing Julia and I. If we were cows, we’d be locked in instantly, but I react like a nervous human, and step out at the last moment, the rope smashing against my face, it’s coarse material slicing my eyeball. It’s painful and begins to swell, a cosmetic injury that will be with me for the rest of the week. Fortunately we got it on camera, so we’ll be able to explain to viewers where the shiner comes from, without them thinking I must have been hitting on Reid’s wife.

“When the stars are out, you can see every one of them,” explains Reid as we sit around a large campfire late in the evening. This time of year it could be blizzarding in Alberta, but we got real lucky with the weather, or as our Calgary-based director Michael puts it, “we threaded the needle”. We spend the night in the Victorian-styled ranch B&B, tastefully assembled by Bill’s late wife. For all the cows, horses, dogs and wildlife, it is as quiet and still as a cave.

Intimate Moments with a Cow

There are more tasks to perform in the early morning hours. A pot of hot coffee fuels us up for a ride into the countryside, checking fences that might have blown over from strong winds or wayward elk. The movie Brokeback Mountain was filmed in these parts (Reid even had a small part), and if you’ve seen the film, you’ll know the beauty of the rolling hills and valleys that jut up against the Albertan Rockies. The wind is icy, and in summer temperatures can still plummet, but the valley is also blessed with the Chinook, the warm front that blows off the Pacific Ocean in British Columbia. Things heat up when I feed the heifers from a trough, and take out the tractor to feed the cows in the fields. Moving hay, shovelling shit, feeding the animals; farm life is physically tough and yet satisfyingly simple. You know what has to be done, and you do it. I had no idea what I was in for when I was called into the barn to find Bill holding a red, plastic “arm condom”, and the backside of a very pregnant cow. These are the moments of great television. The goal is to make sure the calf is positioned correctly for birth, it’s head between its hooves. Mama cow is restrained in a gate-like contraption to prevent her from crushing everyone the moment my hand enters her holy of holies. OK, so here goes, first the fingers, then the hand.
“You need to get in there,” says Bill, as I hesitantly push harder into the moist, warm void. Mama rocks her giant body, startling me as I go deeper.
“Can you feel the head, the hooves,” asks Bill.
I can, and all is in order. I gently extract my arm, greased with uterus goo, go outside, and for some reason, feel like a cigarette.

The word “dude” technically refers to someone who doesn’t know cowboy culture, but pretends otherwise. You can also say that a dude is “all hat and no cattle”. A dude like, say, me. Still, the hospitality from these earthy folks was wonderfully warm and genuine, the values of the modern day cowboy alive and well. Reid might work up in the tar sands over the winter, and Skyline might earn its keep through the flow of tourists, but ranch life remains as real and alluring as the myth that promotes it.

I take Barry out on a hilltop, ponder life as a cowboy, and stare out into the distance at the majesty and dramatic beauty of the Canadian Rockies. High up in those snow-capped peaks, my next adventure awaits.

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