Canada was practically devoid of sixshooters and feuding. At no time were gunmen regarded as heroic characters. Yet endurance, courage and daring of high order highlighted the early ranch settlement of the foothills area, with cowboys playing a leading role.

They came to our west from Montana and as far south as Texas with cattle herds, which were to replace the slaughtered buf.fa1o he;-ds_ They had heard of the lush pastures and the warm Chinooks that made Alberta a rancher’s heaven on earth.

These first cowboys, the men who were able.to trail the came hundreds of miles with minimum loss, passed on their expert knowledge to trainees in Canada Theyconstituted the backbone of the cattle industry.

These early cowboys went about their business, which was tending cattle, quietly and efficiently. Not even the earliest settler can remember them carrying guns or using them. Fists came into play at times, perhaps, to settle arguments, but never did you see 3 real-life enactment of that familiar television scene where two tan men move slowly toward each other on a dusty cowtown street while inhabitants cower in the doorways. Sorry, but it just wasn’t that n_v——not in the Canadian west, anyway.

There were rumors, of course, that some of the men coming north with the herds were gunslingers wanted in their own country as killers, but such men were very wary, and the rumors soon died down The NWMP was always interested in anyone heavily armed, and that was no sinall deterrent. Most cowboys were familiar with firearms in protecting stock against marauding wolves, but riﬂes were the weapons most commonly used. There was one large Texan outfit in which the cowboys always appeared in fancy regalia and shooting irons, but this ranch was a showpiece amongst less ﬂamboyant neighbors and didn't last long.

"Today’s ranch is a soobarb”

Oldtime cowboys, like oldtime ranchers, are quietly passing from the scene of their lifework. Tom Lockhart is one of the few survivors. He took his ease for quite a few years in a more benign climate, but returned to Alberta to spend his “declining’years” (not too fanciful a term considering he is in his middle 80's). He claims that every bone in his body has been aching for good, old-fashioned blinards and the cheery nip of 20 below. Just recently Tom went out to spend a few days on the old home ranch where he had been top hand for 30 years,

and he was greatly saddened by all the changes No one is better .

equipped to express sadness than he, with his downdrooping eyes, his lngubrious nose and downdrooping mouth, the latter neatly curtained by a whitish, yellowish moustache of sumptuous length. His utterances are never violent, just sad.

“No, I'm tellin’ you," he reported on his return to town. “The nnch layout ain’t what it used to be. It's gone soft, soft as butter. All the stock tucked away in their own neat little playgrounds. The cowboys are sure getting plenty of the white meat these days.

'I‘hey’ve all gotso elegant they don’t even need a full-Iime choreman .

no more. Mind when every ranch had a chareman? He might be a little stifffor24-hourridin‘buthestillhadtohavelotsofjuieeinhim to keep up with his chores.

“Hindthewoodandcoalforthebighouseandbunkhouse,with the cook always yellin’ for more and the ashes to be hauled out? Now it‘s all oil or propane for cookin’ and heatin'——no woodpile. Mind the hay to be hauled for the workhorses in the barn, the everlastin’ job of cleanin’ stables and the horses to be shod? Now, in place of the soothin’ stomp of horses’ feet all there is isdumh, stupid tractors and such clutter-in’ up the place. No more ice to put up in the winter- no more icehouse to clean, nor meat house, nor smoke house. All electric light and power, with deep freezes in the basements. All indoor phimbin’, bunkhouses and all, with bath and shower and whatnot

“Believe it or not, some of these so-called cowboys even have electric razors With my own eyes I seen them in action. And that's not all. They’ve got TV in the bunkhouse so the boys can be wised up

to what the thinkin’ man must have for skin beautiful. My! My!”

‘And Tom's moustache waves in derision T‘ “A ranch has become just a

soobarb of the ci ."

One might gather from these belittling remarks that today's cowboy liva a life of sinful ease, but in its own way it is quite as demanding as it ever was-—-even more so, in an all-the-year-‘round sense. The basic ingredients of the cowboy’s work are still cattle and wather and both these are strangely indifferent to eight-hour days and man-made laws, So, when all the winds of heaven are let loose and the earth trembles, when most people are safely under cover an hugging the fireside, ranch folk are out in full force safeguarding their stock

lt is rather surprising to find that, with all the labor-saving devices and the comfortable quarters, the experienced cowboy is in short supply. It takes three or four years of apprenticeship to qualify asatophand,andfewofthemlastthatlong. Theydriftofftotbe industrial life of the cities or to the oil fields. The ranch is fortunate if the trainee stays three or four (Concluded on page forty-five)

The Star Weekly HAGAZINIL April 23, 1960 ’ ‘ " 1’

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