On this week’s episode of The Rural Woman Podcast, you’ll meet Laurie Trigg. Laurie is a grassroots bison rancher in Rural Alberta. Along with her husband and their three kiddos, Laurie owns and operates Backwoods Buffalo Ranch. As a self proclaimed Jill of All trades, Laurie and her family raise pure plains bison, pastured pork, laying poultry, performance horses and have found themselves dappling in homegrown dairy, broiler birds, farm to table produce and recently just bought a nanny goat. In recent month, Backwoods Buffalo Ranch has seen a major increase in the amount of customers looking to purchase directly from their farm which has not kept Laurie busy but also excited for the future.

Laurie Trigg | BIO

My name is Laurie, I consider myself a “Jill of many trades, and expert of none.” I was homeschooled for the “best part” of my academics and cherish that, deeply, as we plan to homeschool our own children. My husband Chad and I are grassroots Bison ranchers in rural Alberta. Both Chad and I were raised on Beef and Quarter Horse operations in Alberta and Manitoba. “I’m the Manitoban.” I came to Alberta, for college at Lakeland College, “Hello Rodeo Team”, met Chad and never left the province. We got engaged at 19+20 and bought our “ranch”, farm whatever you want to call it, at 22 + 23. It was fully fenced with game fence and was home to a herd of bison previously (this is a whole other story), so we said HECK, let’s get some bison! So, we did. We legitimately moved onto our property with my rodeo mare, a couple dogs and a cat and quickly grew from that to a starter herd of bison, a herd of performance horses and a huge variety of funny farm animals. This all happened in 2013, and now 7 years later, we are the proud owners of The Backwoods Buffalo Ranch, a thriving ranch and homestead. We now mainly raise pure plains bison, pastured pork, laying poultry, performance horses and have found ourselves dappling in homegrown dairy, broiler birds, farm to table produce and recently just bought a nanny goat (as if we needed another job.) Throughout our years as grassroots farmers (meaning we have financed and paid for our endeavors on our own), we have encountered many struggles, including job losses, recession, and the loss of our second daughter Willa Hain. We have three children, Oakley Elsie who is 3, Willa Hain in Heaven who is nearly 2 and our sweet Hayes Wilder who is soon to be 1. We are constantly “busy” there is always something on the go over here, whether it be making and building new infrastructure, planting seeds, moving bison, collecting eggs and cleaning coops, or marketing our ever growing meat market. In the last week and a half our business has grown astronomically, I legit haven’t slept for more than 5 hours a night as we have received an influx of orders province wide. We have started a movement of connecting consumers to their local food supply chain and it has really taken off with us at the forefront. When it comes to meat sales our foremost motivation is connecting individuals with the food they receive on their plate. We believe in transparency and welcome people to come and witness how the animals they are consuming are raised, live and ultimately are harvested. With everything that is going on in the world right now that has become utmost important, people are finally starting to realize that food doesn’t necessarily come from the grocery store and that IS exactly what we have been trying to portray all along. We had big plans of FINALLY opening our on ranch “farm store” this summer, however with the untimely circumstances we are holding out as long as we can to ensure our own financial safety. We do STILL offer door to door delivery and on farm pick ups at this time. Also, did I mention, that we host individuals from around the world, year round, to learn and work on our farm through the WWOOF, program? Backwoods Buffalo Ranch is “my baby” and I am so thankful to love on it and share it with anyone who wishes to learn and gain knowledge everyday, and especially through times of crisis and chaos when we need to learn “grassroots” skills to survive. We have been growing our ranch from day one through social media of all kinds and have just recently started a YouTube channel to further connect our consumers with their food. At the end of the day and in this quick tidbit of info about us, all I can say is “This is us, this is Backwoods.” Xox Laurie 

Review of The Week

Stealth support
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ – Gorgeous_Goat via Apple Podcasts · United States of America
“Whenever I listen to a new episode, I am reminded of how many strong, confident women are in the agricultural community. It’s a nice boost of support. PS the online community is great too. Keep the episodes coming!”

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