BONNYVILLE, Alta. – Every four years, Guy Fontaine takes on a new project.
On Jan. 1, 1999, he decided to learn Spanish as a millennium project. Each night for a year he read Spanish books and listened to Spanish tapes.
In November that year he flew to Costa Rica for a 12 week Spanish immersion course and lived with a Spanish family. When he returned to Edmonton he continued to speak Spanish when he could.
“It fulfilled another learning process,” said Fontaine. “I needed to do something.”
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Becoming a delegate to the Alberta Cattle Commission four years ago was also a learning project for Fontaine, who works as a lawyer in Edmonton three days a week. The rest of the week he farms in Bonnyville or attends meetings on behalf of the cattle commission.
Fontaine first considered working for the commission when he heard on the radio one day that the commission was looking for delegates. The timing seemed right for a learning project. He was elected as a delegate in the Bonnyville area.
“It was fortuitous,” he said.
“Whatever I do I’ve got to have fun doing it. If it’s not fun I’ve got to make it fun,” said Fontaine, who’s been known to launch into Spanish during cattle commission meetings or when he greets people.
His weekend cabin overlooking Moose Lake, a premier pickerel lake, is named La joie de vivre, joy of living, which has become a haven away from the law office.
Fontaine said his work with the cattle commission and its committees has kept up his interest in his cattle operation.
As chair of the cattle commission’s public affairs committee, he became involved in the Alberta Foundation for Animal Care, and Report a Poacher program.
He also co-ordinates an animal welfare hotline and is involved in planning a Canadian foot-and-mouth disease control strategy.
“I’ve learned so much from the contacts, the good science meted out there. It totally has nurtured my operation,” he said during a tour of his Sunset View Ranch on the outskirts of Bonnyville.
On this day, Fontaine had invited two Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration officials to his ranch to help plan the best location for a new dugout. Fontaine relies on expert advice in many ventures.
His previous dugouts were designed and the cattle fenced out on the advice of PFRA specialists.
While recently canning tomatoes from his garden, he didn’t understand the science behind the canning process and phoned a home economist, who shared her knowledge.
During another learning project 15 years ago, Fontaine took extension courses, then changed his pasture from a single 300-acre pasture to an intensely managed rotational grazing system with solar powered fences and watering pumps. He has since doubled production off the land.
Keep cattle put Fontaine said a key to maintaining his herd while he continues to work in Edmonton, a two-hour drive away, is a good perimeter fence. The first year he occasionally got calls from residents that his cattle were wandering along the beach.
His love of agriculture is a family heritage. His father was a district agriculturist in the Bonnyville region. After mass on Sunday, Fontaine would join his father on farm visits.
Fontaine said his father had a chance to buy a Massey Harris dealership after the Second World War, but declined because he felt his calling was to help farmers.
“I sense a need to do a little bit of what my dad did,” said Fontaine of his work with the cattle commission.
“I’m spending more time doing it than I did in my wildest imagination. I have a sense of fulfillment. I’ve done for people what my dad did for them.”
