T. Alex Bulman Kamloops Cattlemen: One Hundred Years of Trail Dust! Sidney, B.C.: Gray's Publishing Ltd., 1972. This is a limited history of ranching in the British Columbia Interior with particular focus on one ranch and the author's experience as a long-time stockman in the region.
Philip S. Long, The Great Canadian Range. Vancouver: Cypress Publishing Ltd., 1970. This story of the author's youth on one of the oldest and largest ranches on the southern plains, in addition to its attractive personal quality, presents the ranching industry in its last years before the homesteaders' advance became complete.
T.B. Long Seventy Years a Cowboy: A Biography. Regina: Western Printers Association, 1959. This is the personal account of a pioneer stockman whose ranching career began in Montana and continued in the Canadian West with the first herds trailed into the Cypress Hills region.
C.M. MacInnes, In the Shadow of the Rockies. London: Rivingtons, 1930. Though dated, this study of the ranching region to 1905 remains the most useful.
Wallace E. Stegner, Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier. New York: The Viking Press, 1966 (reprinted in paperback edition). This distinguished author's history and reminiscence of his boyhood on the southern plains is perhaps the most readable of all books dealing with the ranching frontier in Canada. While this is a book of profound insights, it is also one that is enjoyed readily by students at the high school level.
R.D. Symons, Where the Wagon Led: One Man's Memories of the Cowboy's Life in the Old West. Toronto: Doubleday Canada Ltd., 1973. This is a vivid personal account containing all the details of the cowboy's life as it really was and is effectively illustrated with the author's own pen and ink sketches.
Articles
John H. Archer, "History of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers' Association, in Donald Swainson. Historical Essays on the Prairie Provinces. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1970 pp. 194-214 (paperback). Stock associations date from the arrival of the first cattlemen, and this study of the political arm of the Saskatchewan cattlemen focuses upon the efforts of ranchers to meet problems inherent in the range cattle industry.
David H. Breen, "Plain Talk from Plain Western Men: Cattle Baron v. Sodbuster, 1885", Alberta Historical Review XVIII, No. 3 (Summer, 1970), 4-13. This article looks at one of the more serious incidents in the long contest between rancher and farmer for control of the foothill country along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
David H. Breen, "The Canadian Prairie West and the `Harmonious' Settlement Interpretation", Agricultural History, XLVIII, No. 1 (January, 1973), 63-75. The broad question of settler-rancher relations in the Canadian West is examined in this study.
David H. Breen, "The Mounted Police and the Ranching Frontier" in Hugh A. Dempsey, Men in Scarlet (Calgary, McClelland and Stewart West, 1975). assesses the unique and particularly close relationship between the cattlemen and the North West Mounted Police.
A.A. Lupton, "Cattle Ranching in Alberta, 1874-1910: its evolution and migration", The Albertan Geographer, III (April, 1966-1967) pp. 48-58. The changing geographic distribution and economic development of the stock raising industry is examined in this article.
Lewis G. Thomas "The Rancher and the City: Calgary and the Cattlemen, 1883-1914", Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, VI, Ser. IV (June, 1968), 203-215. In this assessment the author examines the social milieu and the metropolitan character of the ranching community in the Alberta foothills.
1993 UPDATE
THE RANCHING FRONTIER IN THE CANADIAN WEST 1874-1905
David H. Breen
The academic and popular literature that focuses upon cowboys, ranchers and their industry has grown significantly over the past two decades. New scholarly and first-hand accounts add greatly to the descriptive range and interpretive depth of the commentary on the cattlemen and their calling.
Books
Brado, Edward. Cattle Kingdom: Early Ranching in Alberta. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1984. A well-researched account intended for the general reader.
Breen, David H. The Canadian Prairie West and the Ranching Frontier, 1874-1924. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983. This study remains the definitive scholarly work in the field.
Dunae, Patrick A., ed. Ranchers' Legacy: Alberta Essays by Lewis G. Thomas. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1986. This volume contains a series of excellent portraits by a senior historian who grew up in western Canada and writes eloquently about ranch life in the Alberta foothills.
Ewing, Sherm. The Range. Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1990. Ewing is a prominent Alberta and Montana rancher, and his book is a skilfully woven synthesis of first-hand accounts.
Hopkins, Monica. Letters From a Lady Rancher. Introduction by Sheilagh Jameson. Calgary: Glenbow Museum, 1981. Hopkins' letters home to Britain between 1909 and 1911 offer a unique and engaging account of life in ranch country.
Lavington, H. "Dude." The Nine Lives of a Cowboy. Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1982. With much humour and the skill of a good storyteller, Lavington reflects on his life as a twentieth-century cowboy.
Slatta, Richard W. Cowboys of the Americas. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1990. Slatta offers a comparative examination of the working lives of cowboys in North and South America, as well as a look at the cowboy in myth, literature and popular culture.
Articles
Evans, Simon M. "American Cattlemen on the Canadian Range, 1874-1914." Prairie Forum 4, no. 1 (Spring 1979): 121-35. Evans points out that two very different ranching traditions - one British-Canadian, the other American - evolved side by side in the Canadian west.
Evans, Simon M. "The End of the Open Range Era in Western Canada." Prairie Forum 8, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 71-87. This essay focuses upon the transition from ranching to wheat farming in much of the ranch country between 1905 and 1912.
