LUMSDEN, Sask. – It wasn’t much of a stretch for Barry and Brenda Clemens to add ranch vacations to their operation.
Their home, a working cattle ranch and horse training centre, has been home to guests from around the world for years.
Drawn by Brenda’s expertise in training riders and horses of all levels, students from Saskatchewan, Sweden, Germany, Australia and Japan came to the ranch for a week or a month to take lessons.
“Now we’re going to turn it into a business,” said Brenda.
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The reason is 18-year-old Taylor, the middle of three children. He wants to make a living on the ranch where he grew up.
Beaver Creek Ranch and Horse Centre is tucked among the acreages and large city-style homes that now dot the Qu’Appelle Valley northwest of Regina.
Brenda’s father started the ranch as a retirement project in 1973. She took it over in 1984 and, after her marriage to Barry in 1989, they began diversifying in earnest.
Using the home site and grazing land leased from the Piapot First Nation farther east in the valley, the Clemens operation totals about 4,000 acres.
Barry, also a respected horse trainer who sits on the board of Canadian Western Agribition, looks after a herd of purebred Red Angus and commercial Red Angus and Charolais crossbred heifers. There are more than 200 cows altogether. He breeds and sells Texas Longhorns and raises cattle to contract for team penning, cutting, team roping and cow-horse competitions.
The ranch hosts all types of clinics and competitions throughout the year.
In early April, there were about 70 horses on the ranch, a combination of their own animals and those there for training or as boarders.
Brenda said she sells horses as “finished products.” Some have gone as far as Japan. She also shows horses for other people.
But she will gradually scale back training, except for a few futurity horses and her own, to concentrate on their new venture.
“We always thought we’d do it in our retirement years maybe but BSE come along and with that in mind we figured why wait til then,” said Barry.
Since there have always been people coming and going around the ranch, the vacation idea was obvious. They decided to build on their existing strengths and the “cowboy way.”
“We’re really targeting the foreign market” and Europeans in particular, Brenda said.
With the help of a consultant, they’ve developed several packages based on what they already have at their ranch. They range from the city slicker for beginners to cowboy weeks for intermediate and advanced riders.
Vacationers will participate in the day-to-day ranch work, depending on their abilities. Some will work buffalo on horseback.
Barry said the idea is not to host large groups, but offer smaller, more personalized vacations.
“You can’t take 20 people out to treat cattle, but you can take two,” he said.
The Clemens’ part-time hired man is also trained as a chef, so western theme dinners are on the menu. For those who can’t get away for long but want to experience the ranch, it offers evening events.
And although Brenda stresses their operation is not a bed-and-breakfast, they do offer accommodation in their ranch house, complete with use of the outdoor swimming pool.
Taylor, an accomplished high school rodeo participant who is delving more into cutting, said the vacation ranch venture sits well with him. He likes the idea of riding horses for a living, although he plans to take a welding course as well.
“I have something to start with. Most don’t,” he said, referring to other young people who want to stay on the farm.
The Clemens also have two daughters. Jody is an agrologist at Foam Lake, Sask., and Shelby is still in school.
Brenda said they know it will take some time to establish their vacation enterprise but think their location close to a major city, an airport, the hills and the Trans Canada Trail is in their favour.
“We have expertise,” she said. “This is what I do for a living.”
