Hands and fists across the border: Canadian and American cattlemen in the twentieth century.

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The American and Canadian cattle industries are very similar and through time they have developed close personal, commercial, and cultural bonds. They have fought common battles against animal disease; have integrated their breeding regimes: developed similar technologies, and adopted like scientific principles to range management. However, a reliance on inflexible cattlemen's associations as mouthpieces and on federal governments to set protective trade agendas, has led to periodic and sometimes acrimonious disputes. The Canadians through their associations want government to secure free access to lucrative markets in the United States while the American cattlemen utilize the same avenues to gain some protection or restraint of trade.

For the most part the two industries have developed in like fashion, following similar breeding, range management, and marketing practices, and along the way, each falling prey to wider national interests while profiting from the twentieth century fixation with beef as a status food. One has only to note how the industry promotes the mythology of beef in both countries. For instance, Omaha beef is eulogized south of the border in much the same way as Alberta beef is north of the 49th Parallel. To J. Patrick Boyle, president and CEO of the American Meat Institute, "the beef industries in the U.S. and its northern neighbor have become so alike in recent years that it's nearly impossible to differentiate between the two, outside of political jurisdictions. In fact, the cattle not only come from the same gene pool, but are raised under nearly identical conditions, fed virtually the same feed and handled under the same regimens. In fact, if Canadian cattle didn't occasionally utter 'eh' instead of the traditional 'moo,' they'd be completely indistinguishable from their American counterparts." (1)

A worthwhile prelude to this paper may be to consider the very different ways academics in both countries have depicted the two founding ranching traditions. In Canada, scholarly interest has not focussed on the historical evolution of the industry itself but rather on socio-cultural factors which distinguished Canada's ranching tradition from that in the United States. Canadian historians Lewis G. Thomas and Sheilagh Jameson, and later, David Breen in his seminal study of the early western Canadian ranching industry, have argued that the presence of powerful east-west metropolitan forces differentiated it from its American counterpart. (2)

In Canada this resulted in a law abiding and hierarchical frontier that contradicted the more egalitarian and lawless American ranching experience. This debate has received short thrift in the United States where historians have argued that there were never two ranching traditions separated by a national boundary but rather different regional manifestations. (3) As for the Canadian cattle frontier, Terry Jordan Bychkov simply places it as an extension of what he called the Midwestern ranching experience. (4) What is interesting is that Canadian scholars, ever seeking ways to isolate Canadian distinctiveness, have used the early cattle industry to exemplify significant cultural differences between the two countries. Not surprisingly, the Americans take a larger more continental view.

The discussion in this paper focuses on American and Canadian cattlemen themselves, rather than on other components of the industry. Both are impacted appreciably by the volatility endemic in any agribusiness, or as one Canadian source quoted in 1938, "a slice of cow is worth 5 cents in the cow, 14 cents in the hands of the packer, and $2.40 in a restaurant that specializes in atmosphere." (5) This means that ranchers often have a very different perspective than meat packers, stockyard and feedlot operators, commission agents, butchers, retailers, or even the consumers who buy the packaged cuts in supermarkets.

Cattlemen must contend with uncontrollable environmental factors. For example, 90 per cent herd losses occurred on the Great Plains in the winter of 1886-87, while similar statistics were given for Alberta in the winter of 1906-07. Cattle producers must also measure the likelihood of profit against feeding costs, which in turn are linked to unpredictable grain supplies and prices. The cattlemen's sense of powerlessness is paradoxically reflected in their efforts to control the price they receive for their live animals. Historically, they mistrusted rail grading, not so much because it was often incongruent with the appearance of the live animal, but because it was done in the packing houses away from the rancher's scrutiny. They also rejected attempts to regulate marketing practices on the grounds that they knew only the best time to buy and sell. Finally, they have had to contend with incompatible government agendas. In this context, American cattlemen have been better placed than their Canadian counterparts.