ADVERTORIAL
A WHOLE LOTTA BULL
Dale Thompson (right) cowboyin’, previous to his workplace injury.
After suffering a ranch work injury, Dale Thompson was relieved to have Worker’s Compensation Coverage to help pull his family through a difficult time.
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rowing up on a farm south of the Qu’Appelle River in southeast Saskatchewan, Dale Thompson inadvertently commenced his ranching career at the age of six. Like many prairie folk living in small farmhouses, the kitchen had been converted from an old granary and the living quarters housed whole families until their children left home at the age of 16 or 18. Thompson’s family worked for the Davis family and lived on Oakland Ridge Hereford Ranch, where his earliest teacher was his father. Thompson helped haul bales, feed cattle, cut firewood and plant fenceposts. Their equipment was operated by horses – for everything except the haying. Sometimes the horses helped with that as well. By the time he was 12-years-old, Thompson was an experienced ranch-hand – feeding 80 bulls every day on his way home from school – for 25 cents a week. 54 WESTERN HORSE REVIEW MAY/JUNE 2021
BY DEBBIE MACRAE He also bought his first saddle at the age of 12. He’d been working at feeding those bulls and a friend by the name of Allan Foster had a saddle for sale. He wanted $12 for it. Thompson told him he wanted to buy that saddle and he was saving up as fast as he could. Sometime later, Allan asked again, if he had the money for the saddle, because if he didn’t, there was another guy who had the cash. Thompson told him, he’d only managed to save $5. Thompson went home “…with a face longer than a wet week in harvest….” and his folks asked him what was wrong. He replied that Allan had a saddle for sale, but he wanted $12 for it – and he had only managed to save $5. His dad went into the bedroom and came out, handing him $7 so he could go buy the saddle. Later, after he got his saddle, he saw his Dad sitting by the woodstove punching holes in the soles of his boots with an awl. He was sewing the boots together with
snare wire. Thompson learned that his dad had been saving the money to buy himself a new pair of boots. Such is the sacrifice of love. As a youngster before he left home, Thompson started taking on outside horses, but he never owned a horse until after he got married. He would have been in heaven if he could have gotten a fulltime riding job, but he was always stuck on a tractor. He also never thought he’d be a good enough cowboy. Thompson left home somewhere between 16 and 18 years of age. Like most kids, he left more than once – coming back to a warm meal and the security of family. However, he really left home for good at about 18 and went to the west coast. Then he went north. It was somewhere in this period of his life that Thompson met Miss Dorothy – they have since been married for 51-years. When his first daughter was born
