VIKING, Alta. – Leif Erickson is struggling to figure out how to survive the financial loss after half his cattle herd drowned in a dugout on his farm.
Erickson, from Viking, Alta., was meeting with Farm Credit Canada officials to work out a financial plan after 105 cows and 65 calves died during a storm.
“Obviously a lot of equity is gone in the farm,” said Erickson, a third generation farmer and father of four young children.
“We’ll know in two years if we can survive.”
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Erickson is still trying to piece together what happened.
During a Dec. 9 storm, the Black Angus cows and their calves huddled together on the north side of a group of trees at the edge of the dugout to get out of the wind. At some point, they crowded into the dugout and the ice gave way.
“The snow just covered over the water holes,” said Erickson, who discovered the cattle frozen into the ice at noon the next day.
About 70 cattle were visible through the ice, and the snow had drifted over the frozen carcasses. Broken chunks of thick ice were frozen between the carcasses.
“It turns your stomach. It’s still very, very hard to look at,” said Erickson.
Neighbour Ed Lefsrud called the drowning a tragic accident.
“(The cattle) were well fed and cared for. They just went in search for a place to get out of the southeast wind,” he said. “This is a rare event.”
There has been an outpouring of support for the family since the news circulated in the small farming community.
Neighbour Rhonda Henry and Viking Auction Market owner Cliff Grinde organized a silent auction and cattle sale during the regular weekly auction to raise money for the family.
Donations were varied and included the use of a tractor and bale buster for a year, hockey tickets, cattle and cash to help the family through the crisis. About $50,000 to $60,000 was raised.
Joanne Hilde-brandt, who runs the kitchen at the Viking Auction Market, has donated $1 from every hamburger sold at the auction market last week as her way of helping.
“This guy’s in a wreck and needs help. It’ll take years for him to recover, if ever,” she said.
Kevin Corrington donated the proceeds of an animal sold through the auction to help ease the financial blow.
“I’m just trying to help out,” said Corrington of Viking.
“People lose cattle in dugouts all the time, just not so many of them,” he said. “It just seems like the ice is so rotten this year.”
Karl Vidal, investigator with Alberta Agriculture’s regulatory services, said it took one day to smash the ice and take the cattle from the dugout to be buried in a nearby pit.
Vidal said ideally all dugouts should be fenced, but there are thousands of sloughs and water bodies across the Prairies and fencing them all is impossible.
“Dugouts are dangerous to humans in the summer and cattle in the winter time,” said Vidal.
“This is not the first time this has happened, but it is the biggest we’ve had to deal with. This was just a huge, huge loss.”
Erickson said the support from the community for his family has been overwhelming.
“We’ve got a great community. This is beyond my wildest dreams, this outpouring of support. Words just don’t express how I feel,” he said.
Erickson said he’s taking the crisis one day at a time. Once the frozen cattle are out of the dugout, he can take stock of his finances and reassess his life as a farmer.
Lefsrud called the incident a metaphor for agriculture. Most farms are on thin ice financially and emotionally, and it wouldn’t take much to fall through the ice, he said.
“We could all end up in cold water.”
