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Hamilton Spectator
a day ago
- General
- Hamilton Spectator
Four generations, one legacy: McKims recognized as BMO Farm Family
The McKim family of DU Ranch have been named the 2025 BMO Farm Family for their multigenerational dedication to sustainable ranching and land stewardship in southern Alberta. With a heritage of raising Hereford cattle along the Livingstone Range since 1953, the McKims were nominated by the Municipal District of Pincher Creek for the annual award — an honour given to families in the districts south of Red Deer. The program is a partnership between the Calgary Stampede and the Bank of Montreal, recognizing southern Alberta farm families who exemplify the value of family-operated agriculture and contribute to rural life. This year, 19 families were honoured during a Stampede reception, with the McKims proudly representing the Pincher Creek area. Each winning family is featured in a commemorative booklet, and a copy will be on display at the MD administration office through the year. For the McKims, the award is more than just a plaque — it's a celebration of legacy, resilience and a shared commitment to the land across generations. 'We were very surprised. It was an extraordinary experience,' Puff McKim told Shootin' the Breeze. 'I do believe that every family deserves recognition. We've been living here since 1953. People recognized us as being worthy of being promoted. We appreciate that very much from the MD of Pincher Creek.' DU Ranch is now operated by Puff, husband Dan and daughter Kate McKim. Kate's sons, 13-year-old Liam Keil and eight-year-old Jase Keil, represent the fourth generation growing up on the ranch, continuing the family's deep-rooted connection to the land. The story begins with Puff's parents, Louis and Carey Dupret, who purchased the 2,500-acre mountain property in 1953 after moving from New Jersey to Blairmore. Louis, a French-born mining engineer, often travelled for work so Carey gradually took over the ranch operations, eventually building a reputable purebred Hereford herd. 'My mother was truly a pioneer,' said Puff. 'She worked hard at building a terrific cow herd in a business that was run mainly by men. I think my journey was easier because she'd already paved the way.' She also credited her father and husband for making the ranch the way it is now. 'The men in our lives are very important,' she said. 'My father designed all the buildings, and he helped my mother create this amazing herd of cattle. My husband, Dan, also works hand-and-foot with the rest of us.' Puff, who always had a fondness for cattle and horses, joined her mother back on the ranch in 1978 with Dan. For the last 47 years, they've raised sustainable and mountain-grown cattle. At one point in the 1980s, the McKims ran up to 200 pairs of purebred Herefords, but the herd was scaled back in the early 2000s following the BSE crisis. Today, the ranch supports 50 cow-calf pairs. But cows aren't the only thing you can find at DU. Puff and Dan's daughter, Kate, started her own business on the land in 2011. Centre Peak High Country Adventures offers riding lessons, trail rides and immersive ranch getaways. 'I was looking for ways to diversify the ranch, but at the same time being able to share with people what we do,' Kate said. 'I wanted to show the world that we are stewards of the land, and to allow people to kind of get back to their roots. I really wanted to set myself apart from other operators by offering that one-on-one experience. So I don't put different groups together.' On top of horseback riding, the ranch also offers getaways to guests. People can book stays at the Ranch Hand, a DU ranch stucco house, or Pioneer, a circa-1900 log cabin designated a municipal historic site in 2007. Kate feels deeply connected to the legacy of her grandparents, who started DU Ranch more than seven decades ago. 'My grandmother didn't know anything about cattle, and neither did my grandfather,' she said. 'But she was a tough lady, living in a man's world and trying to run a ranch. And she did quite well with it.' Kate said her mother, Puff, followed in those same footsteps alongside her father, and now she's proud to be carving her own path while remaining part of the family's ranching tradition. 'To me, it's inspiring,' she said. 'I'm forever grateful to my grandparents for starting what they started, because if it hadn't been for them, it wouldn't be possible for me to do what I'm doing.' Beyond welcoming visitors, the McKims have also worked with conservation programs like MultiSAR to protect wildlife habitat on their land. Fifteen species at risk have been identified on the ranch, and the family is committed to sustainable grazing and water stewardship. 'We maintain and take care of all the land under our stewardship. We're lucky that the valley remains fairly undisturbed,' Puff said. 'The wildlife lives without interference from people, and these critters have always been on the landscape — all these species that are supposedly at risk today. They've always thrived here, up and down the valley.' 'That's why it's so important to hang on to,' she continued, 'to maintain and keep safe everything we're fortunate enough to live next to.' Despite the changes that have come over seven decades, the family's focus on sustainability and co-operation hasn't wavered. 'We've always worked as a family unit,' Puff said. 'We all have the same idea in mind, which is to keep the ranch going and keep everything as healthy and as beautiful as it is in the valley.' Kate agrees with her mother. 'Working with family can be challenging, so having that open communication is very important,' she said. 'But being able to come together at the end of the day and be humble about who we are as humans is pretty important.' That groundedness is perhaps the ranch's greatest asset. From Louis's early vision to Carey's strength, from Puff and Dan's decades of dedication to Kate's passion for sharing ranch life — the DU Ranch remains a living story, still unfolding. 'My grandparents' story is quite inspiring, and to be able to live that legacy is pretty incredible,' Kate said. 'I'm just grateful for the opportunity to be doing what I'm doing.' Looking forward, the McKims hope their ranch 'can survive and stay in the family,' said Puff. Kate echoed that sentiment. 'I want to carry on with the cow herd we currently have, perhaps build it up to be a little bit bigger, if we can sustain it,' she said. 'Hopefully the boys [her sons] will one day want to be here and take it over.' Error! 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National Observer
3 days ago
- Politics
- National Observer
Carney strides into Northern Gateway minefield
Prime Minister Mark Carney set off alarm bells across British Columbia when he told a journalist at the Calgary Stampede that a new bitumen pipeline to BC's north coast is 'highly, highly likely.' Nowhere have those bells been ringing more strongly than in the dozens of First Nations communities who spent a decade fighting the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal. 'Our position hasn't changed,' Marilyn Slett, chief of the Heiltsuk Nation and president of the nine-member Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative, told Canada's National Observer. 'An oil pipeline and tankers is something that we cannot support.' The proposal is perhaps the starkest example of a central tension stemming from Carney's signature legislation, Bill C-5 — that appropriate consultation with First Nations is incompatible with the time scales being put forth. That, in turn, sets up the question hanging over the whole country: What will Carney do if a project he strongly favours fails to win Indigenous support? 'Consent shouldn't be an option,' said Terry Teegee, chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations. Back in the Northern Gateway years (the pipeline was proposed in 2006 and cancelled in 2016), Teegee was chief of the eight-nation Carrier Sekani Tribal Group; the proposed pipeline route went straight through their territory in the centre of BC, and was opposed by all of them. 'Those First Nations haven't changed their mind either,' he said. None of the Indigenous leaders contacted for this article have heard anything about a new pipeline directly from the federal government, and the subject did not come up during Carney's meeting with First Nations from around the country in Gatineau last week. But a government source recently confirmed to Canada's National Observer that a Northern Gateway-style pipeline to BC's north coast is indeed likely to make the list of 'major projects' to be streamlined under Bill C-5. If history is any guide, it's hard to overstate the scale of opposition and public outrage such a decision would provoke in BC. Nine years after it ended, the Northern Gateway saga has faded from many Canadians' minds; a global pandemic and two Trump administrations have eclipsed it in our collective memory. But few projects in Canadian history have generated such intense blowback. Its blatant disregard of First Nations rights and protection of an iconic Canadian landscape united two of the most powerful protest blocs in the country; protests convulsed BC for years on end, generated endless terrible headlines, and consumed an enormous amount of the Harper government's time, energy and political capital. The Conservatives lost every one of the nine West Coast ridings they won in 2011. It also contributed significantly to the distrust of government among First Nations that Carney is reigniting today. Prime Minister Mark Carney set off alarm bells across British Columbia when he told a journalist at the Calgary Stampede that a new bitumen pipeline to BC's north coast is 'highly, highly likely.' Rewriting history Whether he realizes it or not, Carney is tiptoeing straight into the same political minefield Harper trudged through a decade ago. Many see his soft embrace of it as a concession to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, whose demands for such a pipeline have ramped up dramatically in recent months. 'The whole purpose of the exercise we're going through is to expand to new markets,' Smith told CBC on July 2, referring to Bill C-5. 'The best opportunity is in expanding to the West Coast.' In Smith's telling, Northern Gateway was well-received by Indigenous communities and the only reason it failed was that Justin Trudeau decided to cancel the project. 'There could have been a pathway to 'yes,' and he chose the opposite approach,' she said in that interview. According to her, 'Northern Gateway actually showed a pathway where you could have Indigenous ownership. I think there were 35 Indigenous leaders who were very enthusiastic about it. So I would hope we could enter into some kind of process where we would have a similarly positive outcome.' That's a dramatic rewriting of history. Enbridge did sign financial agreements with an undisclosed number of First Nations in return for their support of Northern Gateway, but the names of those nations were never publicly released. Meanwhile, more than 130 First Nations publicly opposed the project. Among them were the nine coastal First Nations represented by Chief Slett – it was their court challenge that led the federal court to overturn the project's approval. Justin Trudeau decided against appealing that decision, and formally cancelled the project instead. Reviving it today runs a powerful risk of reigniting the same opposition, both in the courts and on the streets. Even if Carney and Smith find a number of First Nations to support it, the inevitable opposition of a far greater number of First Nations would be political kryptonite for a government whose relationship with First Nations is already under huge strain. 'It's not going to be the path that they envision,' Slett said. Oil versus gas Phil Germuth is the mayor of Kitimat, the same terminus where Northern Gateway was originally proposed. He was a city councillor and staunch opponent of Northern Gateway 10 years ago; today, he's delighted by all the LNG traffic coming through Douglas Channel. Earlier this month, LNG Canada began its first shipment of liquefied natural gas out of Kitimat; several more LNG projects are coming online in the coming years. Germuth remains extremely wary of transporting bitumen through the same waters. 'They're two completely different projects when it comes to the potential environmental impacts,' he told Canada's National Observer. 'If you're proposing Northern Gateway the way it originally was, I think there would just be so much opposition.' By 2030, Slett expects to see 600 LNG tankers ply her territorial waters and those of her fellow coastal nations every year. She and others have made their peace with that — and think this sacrifice — not a small one, should be enough. 'British Columbia is doing their part in terms of national interest projects with these LNG projects,' she said. Plus, oil is far more dangerous to transport than natural gas, Slett pointed out. 'There is no technology that exists that could sufficiently clean up any oil spill in these deep waters and along the narrow rocky coastlines,' she said. 'We're not going to bear the risk of an oil spill in our waters.' While opposition to transporting bitumen along the north coast hasn't changed in the last 10 years, other things have. One of them is the creation of a huge new marine protected area known as the Great Bear Sea. This is one of the largest conservation projects of its kind on Earth, encompassing 10 million hectares off the north and central coast of British Columbia. Last year, the federal government gave $200 million to kickstart the initiative, which is led by 17 First Nations, including all the ones that defeated Northern Gateway in court 10 years ago. When Trudeau decided not to appeal that loss, he passed Bill C-48 banning oil tanker traffic from the region. Federal Conservatives, multiple Alberta premiers, and Enbridge have all been calling for that ban to be repealed ever since, as a precondition for reviving Northern Gateway. If that happens, it would almost certainly be a sign that a new pipeline battle is coming next. Transport Canada, under whose jurisdiction the tanker ban falls, did not reply to a request for comment on the future of C-48. Neither did the environment ministry. The question, then, is whether Carney appreciates the situation's flammability. According to BC AFN Chief Teegee, the prime minister promised First Nations chiefs in Gatineau that no projects would be approved without Indigenous consent. If he holds true to his word, he'll undoubtedly enrage Danielle Smith and the federal Conservatives. But now that Bill C-5 is law, they no longer have the power to kill the prime minister's signature legislation. The people who can are First Nations.
Calgary Herald
4 days ago
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Kennedy-Glans: The Doug Ford Doctrine: 'We really have to flex our muscles'
Article content Ford is also effusive about the need to get rid of the tanker ban on the West Coast and revamp the impact assessment act. 'Those days are done. They're gone,' he says. 'We have to start moving forward and create the conditions for the rest of the world to look at investing in not just Ontario but other jurisdictions across Canada, from coast to coast to coast.' Article content I moved from Ontario to Alberta in the early 1980s — a time when Alberta premier Peter Lougheed was struggling with prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's National Energy Program — and can still recall the bitter disappointment of Ontario premier Bill Davis's unwillingness to support Alberta's interests. Article content I admit to being impressed by Ford's visit to the recently concluded Calgary Stampede, and not just by his commitment to flip pancakes alongside Smith, whose griddle experience is legendary. Ontario's premier also inked two MOUs with Alberta, to advance freer trade between the provinces and publicly endorse mutually beneficial national-interest projects, including an oil pipeline from Alberta to Ontario (fabricated with Ontario steel). Article content Article content Although Ford's not sure if Carney will be specific about the nation-building projects selected to move forward, in the upcoming discussions around the table in Muskoka, he's optimistic provincial leaders — and their constituents — recognize this unique opportunity to move forward on national infrastructure projects. Article content 'We're moving forward and we're going to see another $200 billion going into our economy, increase our GDP anywhere upwards to six per cent,' Ford says. Article content He expects his fellow premiers will have to hop on this train. 'The residents of each province are going to demand that they get on that train as we're moving forward,' he says, 'because they want to prosper as well.'
Calgary Herald
4 days ago
- Business
- Calgary Herald
The Doug Ford Doctrine: 'We really have to flex our muscles'
Article content Article content Ford is also effusive about the need to get rid of the tanker ban on the West Coast and revamp the impact assessment act. 'Those days are done. They're gone,' he says. 'We have to start moving forward and create the conditions for the rest of the world to look at investing in not just Ontario but other jurisdictions across Canada, from coast to coast to coast.' Article content I moved from Ontario to Alberta in the early 1980s — a time when Alberta premier Peter Lougheed was struggling with prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's National Energy Program — and can still recall the bitter disappointment of Ontario premier Bill Davis's unwillingness to support Alberta's interests. Article content I admit to being impressed by Ford's visit to the recently concluded Calgary Stampede, and not just by his commitment to flip pancakes alongside Smith, whose griddle experience is legendary. Ontario's premier also inked two MOUs with Alberta, to advance freer trade between the provinces and publicly endorse mutually beneficial national-interest projects, including an oil pipeline from Alberta to Ontario (fabricated with Ontario steel). Article content Article content Although Ford's not sure if Carney will be specific about the nation-building projects selected to move forward, in the upcoming discussions around the table in Muskoka, he's optimistic provincial leaders — and their constituents — recognize this unique opportunity to move forward on national infrastructure projects. Article content 'We're moving forward and we're going to see another $200 billion going into our economy, increase our GDP anywhere upwards to six per cent,' Ford says.
Edmonton Journal
4 days ago
- Business
- Edmonton Journal
The Doug Ford Doctrine: 'We really have to flex our muscles'
Article content Article content Ford is also effusive about the need to get rid of the tanker ban on the West Coast and revamp the impact assessment act. 'Those days are done. They're gone,' he says. 'We have to start moving forward and create the conditions for the rest of the world to look at investing in not just Ontario but other jurisdictions across Canada, from coast to coast to coast.' Article content I moved from Ontario to Alberta in the early 1980s — a time when Alberta premier Peter Lougheed was struggling with prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's National Energy Program — and can still recall the bitter disappointment of Ontario premier Bill Davis's unwillingness to support Alberta's interests. Article content I admit to being impressed by Ford's visit to the recently concluded Calgary Stampede, and not just by his commitment to flip pancakes alongside Smith, whose griddle experience is legendary. Ontario's premier also inked two MOUs with Alberta, to advance freer trade between the provinces and publicly endorse mutually beneficial national-interest projects, including an oil pipeline from Alberta to Ontario (fabricated with Ontario steel). Article content Article content Although Ford's not sure if Carney will be specific about the nation-building projects selected to move forward, in the upcoming discussions around the table in Muskoka, he's optimistic provincial leaders — and their constituents — recognize this unique opportunity to move forward on national infrastructure projects. Article content 'We're moving forward and we're going to see another $200 billion going into our economy, increase our GDP anywhere upwards to six per cent,' Ford says. Article content He expects his fellow premiers will have to hop on this train. 'The residents of each province are going to demand that they get on that train as we're moving forward,' he says, 'because they want to prosper as well.'
