TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME

A southern- Alberta ranch kid left for the city, only to fall back in love with the very piece of land he grew up on. Decades later, he's changed— and so have the cows. by Shelley Boettcher

aweathered barn. A ranch house. Some cattle, land and history. The picturesque scene makes it seem as if Michael Kaumeyer was born to bring good food to Calgarians. He and his family own 7K Panorama Ranch, located on a pictureperfect stretch of land near Millarville. They raise a small herd of Texas longhorns and supply much of the meat used by chef Jessica Pelland and her team at Charbar.

Like many of Alberta’s food producers, Kaumeyer doesn’t ranch fulltime. He works in financial services in downtown Calgary, but home is the same land where he and his four siblings grew up. ( His father chose the 7K name because there were seven Kaumeyers.)

Thinking back, Kaumeyer recalls that it was an idyllic childhood in many ways. “This one particular summer, my twin brother and I, we’d get up, have breakfast, saddle up our horses and ride every day,” he says. “That was the summer I really made a connection to the land, and understood what it meant.”

It’s a connection that remains strong—“one of my favourite things to do is to lean against my fence and look at the mountains,” he says— but life has a way of taking twists and turns. In the 1980s, Kaumeyer went to boarding school and his dad sold the ranch. But when Kaumeyer moved back to Calgary and started a family, he couldn’t stop thinking about where he’d grown up. He thought he’d see if the ranch was back on the market.

It wasn’t for sale— yet— but it was for rent, and in short order the Kaumeyers moved in. “Our oldest son grew up in the same bedroom that I had as a kid,” he says with a laugh. “And his brother grew up in my twin brother’s room.” That doesn’t happen often these days. And even better, Kaumeyer says, he and his wife were able to buy back part of the land, including the old calving barn and house.

But when it came to cattle, Kaumeyer took a different approach than his father, who raised Angus and Simmental, breeds that are practically synonymous with the Alberta beef industry. The younger Kaumeyer had fallen for the romance of Texas longhorns. He found a breeder and bought a few, which he raises on grass, with no added hormones or antibiotics.

And the meat? “There’s nothing wrong with the flavour of a Porterhouse steak from a conventional breed. But the flavour of the longhorn is jaw- dropping. It’s so delicious,” he says. “They have a unique flavour profile that’s close to wild game. It’s not as wild as elk or venison, but it has a nutty flavour that’s really interesting.”

Kaumeyer and his wife dream of one day offering farm- to- plate, longtable dinners in the barn. “I bring people out here all the time, and so many have never been to a ranch or been south of Calgary,” he says. “It’s about connecting urban dwellers to rural life. I don’t think people realize how much food is produced just outside the city.”