Alberta’s grazing lease system evolved from the Dominion Lands Act of 1876. Six years earlier, the government of Canada took over Rupert’s Land and Northwest Territories when the Hudson’s Bay Company surrendered its charter to the Queen in 1869.
Large cattle herds were already grazing the Prairies in the 1870s, but there were no formal legal means for allocating rangelands.
The Canadian government did not want to repeat the mistakes made in the United States where open grazing was allowed. The American experience had caused severe overgrazing and conflict among the users. Canada decided to give the ranchers security of tenure over the rangelands.
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The practice of leasing pasture land for grazing was initiated in 1881 to promote livestock production on lands unsuitable for crops. The maximum size of a lease was 100,000 acres and tenure was issued for 20 years. The rent was one cent per acre per year.
Pushed west
When the government opened the Prairies to homesteaders, the ranchers were pushed farther west and land was broken.
The Alberta government took over administration of these lands in 1930. Alberta has 98 million acres of unsettled land owned by the provincial government. Today the province has about 5,500 leaseholders on 5.2 million acres of crown grazing land.
In 1993 the province moved the responsibility for crown lands to the agriculture department from environment.
The province allocates these lands under three types of dispositions: grazing leases, licences and permits. Each gives the rancher varying degrees of control over public access.
