FAST FACTS

■ The Oxley Ranch is one of Canada’s oldest working ranches, beginning operations in 1882.

■ When it was established, the massive ranch spanned more than 80,000 hectares, nearly twice as large as Waterton Lakes National Park.

■ The southern foothills remain one of the few remaining territories with relatively intact fescue grasslands in Alberta, of which less than five per cent is thought to remain across Canada.

■ Alberta’s Eastern Slopes contain the last one per cent of the Canadian Great Plains that remain intact, and have enough space to accommodate natural large wildlife, including bears, cougars and wolves.

■ Oxley and three other protected ranches in the area provide fresh drinking water to some 45 per cent of Albertans.