Product promotion | Ranch visitors eager to get close to the hairy creatures and learn about their history and production
MORRIN, Alta. — The giant herds of bison that used to roam the Prairies will never return, but Art Grenville hopes to paint a mental picture of them for visitors to his farm.
Every night during the summer, Grenville and his wife, Kandice, load visitors to their bison farm onto a wagon and drive into a herd of bison.
He tosses grain on the ground and the visitors can almost reach out and touch the shaggy creatures.
As the bison mill around the wagon, Grenville reaches for his well-thumbed copy of a book about Hudson Bay explorer Peter Fidler’s life, including his trip from Drumheller to Red Deer in the spring of 1793.
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Grenville points to a hill that Fidler may have stood on and watched what he estimated were a million bison. A 16 kilometre wide area was black with moving bison.
“I tell the tourists if they want to see more buffalo, you’ve got to eat more buffalo,” said Grenville, who operates Morrin Corner Bison at Morrin.
His family didn’t set out to be bison promoters, but their farm quickly became a popular stop when a tour operator asked the couple to be part of Drumheller tourist tours.
“They come from all over the world in the summer,” said Kandice.
The neighbours bring friends, kindergarten classes come from nearby schools for a chance to get close to bison and passing motorists see the road sign and stop for a tour.
The couple charges $5 per visitor.
Grenville said he could probably do more to attract visitors and sell bison meat, but the couple can only do so much.
“We should probably do more on marketing, but I have got to run this damn farm.”
The couple has 2,000 acres, half seeded to grain and the rest to hay and pasture. They run about 140 bison cows and sell the calves when they are two years old.
Despite the work involved in running a grain and bison farm, Grenville said it’s still less work than cattle.
Tired of getting up in the middle of the night to check on his beef cattle, he switched to bison after seeing an advertisement in the newspaper.
“It said half the work and twice the profit. I jumped in with both feet.”
He bought his first 25 head in 1996.
However, BSE took a heavy toll on the farm. With only one federal packing plant slaughtering bison and the borders closed, the price of bison dropped.
“I damn near went broke after BSE,” he said.
Bison prices have climbed steadily since then and have been strong in recent years.
“Even the local market has im-proved,” said Kandice, who sells meat to farm visitors, neighbours and regular customers.
The Grenvilles try to keep the bison operation as low maintenance as possible by not weaning the calves until March and leaving the bulls with the herd year round. The bison graze on standing corn in winter.
