Regenerative Bison in Canada
- 5 hours ago
- 15 min read
Guest blog by Heather Smith Thomas
Cody Spencer grew up on a farm in Alberta, but his family didn’t continue farming so his path back to agriculture took a few detours. This journey led him into regenerative land management and Holistic Management using bison as well as cattle to accomplish the desired goals.
Cody owns Sweetgrass Bison, a company focused on regenerative bison management and the production of nutrient-dense food as a result of biodiverse landscapes. For more than 10 years he gained experience in managing beef and bison in Texas and Alberta, and preserving landscape integrity through conservation easements on ecologically significant landscapes along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta.
The Journey to Bison
“During my formative years growing up, my family had a farm in southern Alberta, very close to the Montana border,” says Cody. “We were in a small community called Milk River, where most people were involved in agriculture.
“I had a really great childhood on the farm where my parents were involved in grain production and crops. That wasn’t something I was drawn to as a future for myself. There were always some cattle around as well, but I wasn’t particularly interested in cattle either, at that time.”
His mother always had horses and took the family on rides out on the native prairie. “Something about being out there, in natural spaces, stuck with me,” says Cody. “When I was about 12 years old my family sold the farm, due to a number of different dynamics—some from the family, some from a proposed highway development coming through our farm, and tough economic conditions. There were many factors leading to my parents’ decision to sell the farm. The way it was run at that time in the early 2000s was very conventional and it was no longer viable economically.”
The farm was sold, and they moved to a place about an hour away. “It wasn’t really that far, but to me at that age it seemed like a world away,” says Cody. “We were removed from the land and agriculture for a while, until I was in my late teens. I was figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, and went to college for a year. Then I went to work in the trades and got a journeyman’s welding ticket, then shifted into carpentry.
“I was always seeking something else—something that I could be passionate about and dedicate my time to. I kept feeling a tug back to the land, because in my late teens I’d gotten back into hunting. I’d gone hunting with my dad on the farm when I was a kid, and enjoyed that. Once I started doing some hunting again and spending more time in the mountains and prairies—the natural ecosystems—I became hooked on being in nature and the natural balance of everything.”
He also began doing some work with cattle here and there, and realized this was a great lifestyle, but wasn’t sure how he could find his way back to it. “During that time, working in construction, I was feeling the huge disconnect between the two worlds,” says Cody. “Everything in that world is all about development, converting the natural world into something different or extracting from it. I was feeling that this was pushing me away from what I was seeking, even though I didn’t know what I was seeking at that time.
“Growing up, I was told by my parents that I couldn’t get into agriculture because you can’t make a living, and after they sold the farm, they didn’t think I could possibly do something like this. Yet I didn’t completely give up on it.”
Then in 2011 he read a book by Wes Olson, who is now his good friend and mentor. The book was called Portraits of the Bison: An Illustrated Guide to Bison Society. In it, Olson discusses the history, social structure, and life cycle of these animals, with an emphasis on safety and awareness while observing them.
“My mom actually had this book on her coffee table, and one day I started looking through it and thinking about it,” says Cody. “It portrayed the history and background of the bison and how they were nearly hunted to extinction. The recovery of these animals over the past century has been remarkable. There were only a few animals left in the late 1800s and now there are 500,000. In addition to the herds in parks and some public herds there is also a ranching industry with people raising them. I wondered if I could get involved with this, somehow.”
Starting from that initial curiosity about these animals, he was led to seek out local ranches in southern Alberta that had bison. “I found two of them. One was owned by an older couple who raised bison on a small scale and sold the meat direct to consumers. I bought a side of bison from them and tried the meat—and fell in love with it. The meat was delicious and obviously very healthy. It was similar to the elk and deer meat that I had been eating, focusing on my own health,” he says.
“This was back in 2012 when the Paleo movement and a move toward eating unprocessed foods was starting to take hold. I thought this might be an opportunity for me, to raise bison. I connected with another ranch that had been raising bison for 20-plus years, since the 1980s. They had pioneered as one of the early bison producers. The brother of the current owner had converted the ranch to bison from cattle, but he died in a car accident. His brother came back to take over the ranch and he was the one I met. He was managing the place from somewhere in Toronto where he currently lived—even though he had grown up on the ranch.
“This was an opportunity for me to step in, with my building experience, and my desire to learn about these animals and how to manage them. Also, during that time, I knew I wanted to make a switch back to ranching. I had already quit my job as a carpenter and had moved out to a 50,000-acre cattle ranch to gain experience. I was working with a friend of mine who was managing that ranch.
“I wanted to gain more experience; even though I grew up around ranching I didn’t have all the necessary skills. I started to piece those things together and then transitioned into working for the bison ranch and gradually taking over management. I also started a small meat business, selling the meat locally at an organic grocery store in Lethbridge, Alberta.”
That’s where Cody met his wife, Julia. She had purchased the store and they fell in love through their shared values. “We continued to sell the meat for a few years, and bought another herd of bison and got a few things going in that direction in Alberta,” says Cody. “Then in 2018 we had the opportunity to move to Texas and manage the Roam Ranch. The new owners decided to start their own bison ranch and needed people with experience.” They hired Spencer and Julia to help them.
Soil, Bison & Holism
“Along the way during this journey toward raising bison—in 2015--I discovered Holistic Management via various sources. I was working with bison and figuring out how to make a go of things as someone essentially starting from scratch. Even though I was 5th generation in agriculture, I was starting again as first generation. I just followed my curiosity which eventually led me to the best ways of doing things and to the people who have been successful and most professional in what they do,” Cody says.
“That led me into the Holistic Management aspect, and people who pioneered that movement with success over the years. I dove deep into Holistic Management during 2015-2017, connecting with people like Roland Kroos. I did several workshops through him, and then when we moved to Texas in 2018, we had a foundation for managing bison in a regenerative manner. Holistic Management and regenerative ag encompass a very small community of people, and when you a separate that down into bison it gets even smaller; you can count those people on one or two hands.
“As I started to learn and practice Holistic Management, I could see the benefits it was providing in my own life and on the land that I was managing. At that time, I didn’t have much time for one-on-one mentors, but just piecing the knowledge together with what I could read was a big help.”
In 2017, just before he and his wife moved to Texas, he went to a workshop on soil. “I had been managing grass for a few years and thought this would be the logical next step. I thought I knew a few things about managing animals and grass, and then I went to that workshop and had no idea who was doing it or what it would be about, except that it was on soil. As it turned out, Nicole Masters was putting it on but I had no idea who she was. That day, she delivered a gut punch to me in pointing out that soil is a living, breathing super organism and that the soil biology actually drives all of our soil fertility and the production that we have,” Cody says.
“Before that I only knew that there were a few things in the soil like earthworms and little bugs and creepy crawly things, but had never experienced that paradigm shift to acknowledge all those organisms that we can’t see—especially the mycorrhizal fungi that are the foundation we need to focus on.”
Mycorrhizal fungi form a mutually beneficial (symbiotic) relationship with plants, in which the fungi provide greater access to water and nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen from the soil in exchange for sugar from the plant's photosynthesis. These fungi extend the plant’s root system, accessing areas too small for roots, and can also improve drought tolerance, nutrient cycling, and even help protect the plants from pathogens and other diseases.
“This was a huge eye-opener for me,” says Cody. “Then we moved to Texas and had some neat experiences managing bison and livestock and doing different things there. I was trying out and experimenting with different things, while managing animals in a different ecosystem than I was accustomed to on the northern plains.
“During that time, we hosted Nicole for a workshop on the ranch and then she did some consulting with us, which really expanded my understanding. Also during that time I met and worked with many great people in Texas. We met and became close friends with Rick and Liz Haney who taught us a lot about soil, and we took classes from Kirk Gadzia and Ken Klemm in Holistic Management. We became acquainted with Peggy Sechrist—a Holistic Management Certified Educator who lived in the same community we did. We became involved in a program called Soil for Water, addressing a local issue to focus on restoring the soil sponge in central Texas.
“We built ourselves a community of people we could learn from and be mentored by. These included Chad and Rhona Lemke in central Texas; they were very important mentors and teachers for us in Holistic Management. Many people expanded our network in a big way. Travis Krause was another Holistic Management practitioner who became a friend and mentor. For me it’s always been about relationships, the entire way—finding the people who are the best and the most passionate about what they do, doing things for the right reason, and then learning from those people.”
The Importance of Relationships
Towards the end of 2020 he and Julia moved back to Alberta. “We had a herd of bison here that my brother was managing while we were in Texas, but they were on leased land. This is the challenge for me—the fact we don’t have a family ranch. We are trying to gain some security and eventually the equity and ownership over time to have our own ranch. Leasing land is fine but you don’t have the security you need. This is the journey we are working through right now,” Spencer says.
The ranch they were leasing wasn’t the proper long-term fit. It was a good learning experience, however, as they ran a herd of bison on it for five years. “We are seeking something we can invest in for the long term. That’s our goal for our most precious years when we have the most energy and passion for it,” he says.
“We moved back to southwestern Alberta, to an area called Pincher Creek, just north of Glacier Park along the Rocky Mountain Front—or what we call the eastern slopes of the Rockies. This is basically where the Great Plains slams up against the Rocky Mountains. It’s a beautiful area--ranching country with productive soils and grasslands. We always wanted to be in this area so we moved back here and started to build a community and generate some opportunities for us to continue ranching—and raising bison.”
In the past few years, they have developed a relationship with a ranching couple who have been on a beautiful ranch for nearly 50 years. “They are first generation ranchers; in their early 20s they moved out here from Saskatchewan and bought this ranch and paid for it with cattle. They have done an amazing job in leaving it better than they found it and they are still in good health in their 70s, and still actively ranching. We have partnered with them to run some bison and some cattle on their land. We are now trying to see if we can work out an arrangement that would work well for everyone in the long term,” says Spencer.
“For us, it’s about gaining security to be able to make decisions for the long term and not have to worry that we might have to be off the land in a year or so if something happens. That’s what we are navigating, and one of the best things for me about it is to be on a place and working with somebody who has intimate knowledge of that land and has been there a long time—and knows the ins and outs of a place over the course of 50 years. This ranching couple maybe have not fully restored the land to its pre-settlement condition, but they have definitely left it better than they found it.
“To me that is very inspiring. We can work to give back to the land and do various things like restoring beavers to the creeks and planting trees, and bringing bison back to this ecosystem. We have every species that was here before colonization. Now that there are bison on the land, we actually do have every species and I feel this is really neat. These are some of the things that drive me.
“Along the way I’ve found that relationships are the most important part of everything that I do. I started a podcast last year called ‘Back to the Land with Cody Spencer’ and it’s about connecting with all these people who are in my network, who inspire me and have very interesting stories to tell—and have yet to tell those stories. Of course there is a thread about bison, but more broadly it addresses regenerative agriculture, conservation, and how do we get the next generation back onto the land. How can we get them into a livelihood where they can have security in what they are doing and be prospering and not struggling to do the work of land stewardship that we desperately need?
“There are many problems that we don’t have solutions to but through exploring these conversations and building relationships we are working on addressing these issues. We really have no other choice. If we don’t anything, it will all completely fail.
“Along the way, my relationship with Nicole Masters blossomed. We were connected through our work in Texas but she mentioned she was starting to put together a sort of Master’s degree in regenerative ag for people to teach them how to coach other people in regenerative agriculture. She started the CREATE program in 2021 and I was part of the first group. It is difficult to describe, but this program is a deep dive into regenerative agriculture, soil science and all of the technical aspects of what we do, but also focuses on the human side—the psychology and how people change, and how you can plant the seeds and the conditions to help people change their paradigm. That was a transformative experience for me, being a student within that program. There were people in it from all over North America, from all different types of agricultural production.
“Once that cohort finished, she asked me to join as a coach on the next CREATE program. I was on her team for several cohorts after that and it was pretty neat to be on that side of it—teaching and coaching. The second cohort was mainly U.S. based and the third one was European based. We got to go to the UK and work with many amazing people doing work in regenerative agriculture over there. That was a great experience.”
Today, however, Cody’s focus is on the ranch in Alberta, building the bison herd and cattle enterprise. “Julia and I have two young boys and they are our number one priority. Andy is five years old and Johnny is four. Thus, our main focus is our family. In addition to the ranching, we are in the tourism business. Where we live in southwestern Alberta in the Rocky Mountains is an amazingly beautiful place. People come from all over the world to experience the Rockies. We have a tourism business called Stepping Stone Cabins--a small business that we love and want to expand on in the future,” Cody says.
“We hope to integrate bison experiences for the people who come, along with the land and agriculture-based experiences for them. This may expand their interest and knowledge to gain a more holistic view of life—a life that is more in tune with nature. My wife is a nutritionist so everything we do ties back to the land, water, nature, and living a high-quality life, and Holistic Management helps us remain clear in our context in defining what we want our quality of life to be, and what we want our future to be. This has been very important in our journey. It seems like that vision that we’ve laid out in our context has become reality.”
The ranch runs yearling cattle as well as bison. “The owner shifted from cow-calf production to a yearling operation—just running yearlings in the summer—a couple years before we became involved,” says Cody. “He did this shift to start scaling back on the work load as he got into his 70s and wanted to slow down. We stepped into that situation, and we were not going to convert the whole ranch to bison. We were just going to try it out. Last year was the first year with bison and we started small, and this year we got some more.”
In the meantime, the bulk of the grazing is done by yearling cattle, to have the necessary symbiotic relationship between the grass and the grazer, and to keep improving the land with proper grazing. “It’s all about utilizing the grass in a way that fits everyone’s context, and by running cattle seasonally it makes good use of our labor,” says Cody. “I live 45 minutes from the ranch, so for us to be driving out there all the time and moving animals, it must be well planned. Otherwise, this task would eat you alive. It’s one thing if you live at the ranch, which the owners do, but for me to commute and take care of the cattle, it works best to graze yearlings.
“Who knows which direction we will be going in the future but the main thing is that we are adaptable and we are all pretty flexible in terms of what type and class of animals we graze. Last year we ran steers, and this year we ran heifers. It all depends on the cattle market, and in the future, we may do something different. The cattle are owned by the ranch owners and us. These are all purchased, and my wife and I bought into a small portion of them. We don’t know at this point what we will buy next year, but yearlings do give us a lot of flexibility in how we graze and how many.
“Our two boys enjoy being out on the ranch. We camp a lot out there, and build fence together. They are really into putting up electric fence; this seems to be the first thing they are really attracted to. They also enjoy being with the bison. There’s something about bison that really draws people and our kids certainly respond to that, too. To me, this is the most important thing in these next 7 to 10 years—the most formative age for my kids, or any kids. If we can expose them to the land, to ranching, to food production, to being responsible, and business oriented and providing value to the world and taking care of the world, that’s my number one focus.
“We still do a little bit of direct marketing of bison meat to customers who want it, but this is an insignificant portion of our total income. We are still involved in meat production, however, but will probably pursue more of a bison breeding business, to provide breeding stock for other bison ranchers, especially people who want to get into bison. We are focused on pure plains bison, because bison genetics have become a bit muddied and muddled in the last couple decades as people crossed them with wood bison and other strains.
“I am very passionate about low-stress bison handling and hope to produce animals that can be used to start other herds that are well managed and not prone to fight or flight.
“Along with that, we focus on genetics, and I do quite a bit of bison consulting—and helping indigenous nations re-establish herds on their land, and helping other bison producers.
“Wes Olson, the bison ecologist, has approached me to co-author a book on raising bison, adding a unique perspective of regenerative bison management. It has been a real honor to work with such an inspirational man like Wes Olson and to advance the body of knowledge in the bison world. The book is titled Guardians of the Buffalo: A Guide to their Care and Stewardship and is geared toward all walks of life managing bison – indigenous, non-indigenous ranchers, conservation organizations and public agencies. The book will be in print in the spring of 2026.”
Cody is excited about the future and grateful that he has had so many great mentors and business partners along the way to help him create the life he wants for his family and himself as they work to regenerate the land and bison genetics. “If I were to look back 10 years compared to now, we are living a version of our dream, and I contribute a very large part of that to Holistic Management,” says Cody. “It has been an interesting, fun journey, and hopefully it is just getting going!”
