The General Roundup, 1895 and Herding Cattle, 1900.
Perhaps the most important and exciting part of the cowboys' work was roundup time. There might be three roundups a year but the general roundup, starting at the beginning of June, was the most important. The purpose was to reassemble the ranchers' cattle, some of which would have strayed a hundred miles or more from their home range, so numbers could be assessed and the spring calf crop branded. At the general or district roundup, ranches were represented by their cowboys. Each rider brought his "string" of six to eight saddle horses which were used in rotation gathering and working the cattle. From among the ranch foremen present, a captain was usually elected to direct the vast search and to give working orders to the twenty to fifty assembled cowboys. The biggest roundup in the history of the Canadian West took place in 1885. Legend holds that in this roundup, covering almost the entire ranch country, some one hundred cowboys supported by sixteen chuck wagons and over 500 saddle horses gathered over 60,000 head of cattle.
Cattle gathered during the spring roundup were herded until the grazing country had been carefully searched and the spring calves branded. Then the cowboys would trail the cattle belonging to their respective ranches back to the home ranges. Trailing called for top riders and experience. The foreman and "old hands" rode on the herd flanks while the "greenhorns" rode in the dust at the "drag" end. The cattle were collected again in the fall to select those animals ready for market. The cattle here seen crossing the Bow River were on their way from the Circle Ranch to Strathmore, the main stock-shipping point on the Canadian Pacific Railway between Calgary and Medicine Hat. A representative day on the trail consisted of grazing in the proper direction for two hours in the morning. driving briskly until noon, a two-hour rest stop and several more hours of slow travel to allow grazing. The idea was to get the cattle to the stockyards or shipping point in prime condition with a minimum weight loss. Usually such drives went without mishap, but the cowboys were ever-watchful, particularly of an ominous prairie sky that promised a sudden thunder storm which could spark what the cowboys feared most of all - a stampede.
