PINCHER CREEK, Alta. – Tom Olson wants to restore what has been lost on the Prairies – a healthy ecosystem that supports native grasslands and bison.Using rough fescue regrowth as his gauge for range health, Olson is rebuilding pastures on four ranches.It is part of a conservation philosophy going back to when Olson, a Calgary tax lawyer, brought six bison to his Bragg Creek spread in 1992.Today, with his wife, Carolyn, and 10 children, the family owns 4,000 bison on the four ranches at Pincher Creek, Alta., Del Bonita, Alta., Consul, Sask., and Pine River, Man.“These animals are starting to reconnect with the land they once controlled,” he said.Olson recently invited Calgary area chefs and food buyers to his Spread Eagle Ranch near Waterton Lakes National Park in southwestern Alberta to show how he nurtures the circle of life on the degraded ranges.The sun and the plentiful precipitation in the foothills make the grass grow and trap water, while the bison eat the grass and fertilize the soil with their manure.The bison are then used for meat, which is marketed through Olson’s High Country Bison as a natural, grass-fed product to Alberta restaurants and smaller retailers.Visitors to Olson’s ranch are given the complete farm-to-fork experience. Olson shows them manure patties, clumps of fescue and other native grasses among wildflowers such as crocus and shooting stars. There is also the captivating sight of bison roaming in large family groups across the prairie.Olson works with range and environmental scientists to restore rough fescue, which has evolved over thousands of years with the bison. It is Alberta’s provincial grass and once stretched across the Prairies, but most has been lost to cultivation for crops and tame grasses.“It may take several decades for it to recover,” he said.Olson’s grass is growing knee deep and is saved for winter foraging. Snowfall in this region can be more than a metre deep, but the bison instinctively know to dig through and survive on the stockpiles.He has been told runoff has increased by 35 percent in the last century because of the loss of deep-rooted grasses that sponge up the water.“We are going into climate change that is hotter and drier and we have more runoff,” he said.“We are now more vulnerable if we want to have a sustainable food system because we wrecked our landscape. We try to replicate what happens in nature.”Olson believes current food production practices are not sustainable. He is interested in finding ways to keep ranching families on the land and recognize their long-term conservation practices.Olson, an avid promoter of bison meat, thinks one way to make bison sustainable is to eat them rather than treating them like an endangered species.He selects young bulls for the meat market and processes them at one of two federally inspected, European Union approved plants in Alberta.He said bison meat is low in fat and high in protein and essential nutrients such as iron. He promotes it as a healthy alternative for a new generation plagued with obesity, diabetes and heart disease.A former president of the Canadian and Alberta bison associations, Olson has taken his conservation messages across North America.He also promotes it locally to consumers interested in sustainable agriculture and getting back to the basics of food.However, he also feels chefs and consumers need advice on how to prepare grass-fed meat such as bison.James Pickering, a chef and salesperson for High Country Meats, works with restaurants and retail outlets to demonstrate the versatility of an alternative red meat.The key is a willingness among chefs to experiment, he said after preparing a meal with a dozen platters of bison cuts including sausage, pastrami, brisket, prime rib and steak tartar from smoked eye of round.“Chefs get programmed,” Pickering said. “A steak sandwich is a six ounce beef sirloin.”He wants them to try bison, learn how to cook it properly and offer it as Canadian cuisine.There have been successes.“In the top 10 restaurants in Calgary, we are servicing eight of them.”Pickering said he has learned during his three years with High Country Meats that chefs go one of two ways: they either buy the high-end cuts such as tenderloin or stay with ground products.For the home chef, he suggests trying a bison roast, cooked at 300 F for 20 minutes per pound. There will be drippings for gravy, but little fat.
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