LIVESTOCK Sunrise Farm—
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into the oven and I milked 16 cows and did everything else that needed to be done while they were working on the harvest,” he recalls. In 1967 when he finished grade 12, he left the farm to go to university. As he was driving down the driveway he made a vow that he would do something else and not farm. “It was a good place to grow up, BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS but I never wanted to do this again; I was determined to look for greener pastures,” says Don. “My rearview mirror on the 1960 Ford I was driving n 1983 Don Ruzicka, his wife, Marie, and their three children, Anna, as I went down the driveway didn’t have that statement ‘Objects in the Matt and Paddy, followed their dream of moving back to the farm that mirror may be closer than they appear,’ but if it had, it would have been so Don’s maternal grandparents had settled in 1915. Don’s grandparents, true! I would have said there was no way I was coming back, but that farm Frank and Rose Swoboda, took a chance that there were greater in my rearview mirror was actually closer to me than I thought!” opportunities in western Canada for Don went to university, and during farming; they sold their livery business the summers worked at a logging camp in Fairdale, North Dakota in 1910 and on the west coast of Vancouver Island. headed to Flagstaff County in Alberta. The “In life, all the places that you’ve been farm they settled on is located northwest and the work that you’ve done leave an of Killam, Alberta. impact/impression on you in one way “Every morning when I go out on or another. When I went to work at the the deck of our house, especially in the logging camp, I parked my car near the wintertime, I think about my grandparents ocean, got on a float plane that flew me and how they must have been very into the logging camp, and as the plane strong, tough people. The cold weather took off it circled the town. There was a they had to go through, without electricity big sign there that said ‘This forest is a or the airtight heaters we have today, was managed forest. For every tree that we certainly a challenge. People often talk log, we plant three to replace it.’ about how tough their grandfathers were, “For me, that statement was the but I also think about the grandmothers beginning of an ethic, realizing we who cooked meals 24/7 and had to have to care for the environment—no endure a lot of hardships,” says Don. matter what we do in life. I was so It is from that heritage that Don and impressed with what they were doing Marie have developed Sunrise Farm, in the logging industry in 1969 when I persevering through hardship and went to work there—logging much more challenges to create a farm that produces conscientiously than they are today in healthy animals, food, and land. Canada,” he says. “I worked there for a few years The Journey to the Farm and met Marie when I came home for Don grew up on another farm about Christmas one year (she was from a mile and a half across the section from Edmonton). We dated for a couple Don and Marie received Emerald Award from The Land the farm his grandparents settled. “My years, and then got married. We Stewardship Center in 2011 for their efforts of stewardship. parents had a mixed farm with hogs, bought five acres on the west coast of laying hens, broilers, turkeys, beef cattle and grain. My older brother and Vancouver Island, between Ladysmith and Nanaimo. I had been reading my sister went away to get an education when I was in grade 10, and my books on how to build a log house, so we built a small log cabin (22 feet younger brother was 11 years younger than me, so when harvest time wide by 32 feet long, with a loft) and it was gorgeous,” says Don. Their came my mom ran the combine, my dad ran the grain truck and baled first child, Anna, was born there in 1978. while he was waiting for the truck to fill up, so I would come home from He worked for a tree-service company, falling, topping and pruning school and do all the chores. My mom had everything waiting for me to put trees over houses and power lines. “Workers from that company stopped
Developing a Regenerative Farm in Alberta
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Land & Livestock
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