Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 16

The Cochrane Ranch

by William Naftel

Abstract

The Cochrane ranch at Big Hill (now Cochrane, Alberta) and its successor and corporate cousin, the British American ranch, telescoped into a few years the various pioneer stages of large-scale Canadian ranching. Beginning in 1881 as the favoured child of a government that saw it as a means of profitably occupying a vacant area, the Cochrane ranch fell victim within two years to overconfidence, hard winters and mismanagement, and its cattle operations were moved to a more equable climate south of Fort MacLeod. The Big Hill site was transferred to the British American Ranche Company for sheep raising yet by 1888 this ranch was the victim of management and market problems and the rush of settlement to the West. The Cochrane ranch became successful on its southern range, but after the death of its founder was sold in 1905. Cochrane's efforts had brought other ranches into the empty land and demonstrated to settlers that the Red River Valley was not the only attractive area of the Northwest.

Submitted for publication 1973, by William Naftel, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Ottawa.