In the early years before settlement, the ranchers drove their cattle in the spring from the sheltered foothill valleys to the excellent summer pasture to be found on the plains to the east. Homestead settlement along the railway between Calgary and Lethbridge in the late 1890's and early 1900's greatly restricted this natural movement and eventually forced many ranchers to locate on the drier, less desirable eastern plains where the winters were much more severe.
While the sleek condition of the Percheron mares seen grazing on "Bar U" ranch lands southeast of Calgary suggests the quality of summer pasture on the open plains, the bleak and more inhospitable wind-swept character of this landscape in the winter months can be imagined.
