Fresh spring air flows through the eastern edges of the Palliser Triangle; snow is melting in slow layers, softening the ground beneath overwintered grass. Above, a silhouetted pair of Swainson’s hawks trace wide, silent circles. The sloughs still wear a thin sheet of ice, but water is beginning to move, collecting in low spots and disappearing into the soil. It is here that our mystery begins - whether the water will stay, whether it will pool, and whether it will fill the dugouts. If it doesn’t, and the dugouts do not recharge by early summer, there will not be enough water for the cattle — and hauling water every day for another year is the last thing anyone here wants. So, in the spring of 2025, the Mappin’s are trying something different: a towering Wyoming snow fence, constructed with assistance from RDAR’s PREP grant initiative to catch snow, hold it, and drive more runoff into the dugouts.
Brad and Terri Mappin run a 3,300-acre cattle and forage operation just outside Byemoor, Alberta. They call themselves grass farmers first, cattle are just how they harvest what the land grows. Their grazing system is built around movement, rotating animals as much as possible to give pastures time to rest and recover. It has helped keep their grass and soil healthy and their feed bills manageable, but it only works if water is available and nearby, and over the past few years that has become harder to guarantee. The Mappin’s have watched their dugouts dry up, their winter water supply shrink, and the cost of hauling water rise. “We have been hauling water to cows for the last three or four years,” Terri says. “By the time we hit last fall, out of 26 dugouts, there were three that had water in them.” Each truck load holds 6,500 gallons from a fill in town and costs more than $120, not including fuel, equipment wear, or the three hours it takes out of their day. That’s in winter, on hot summer days when the cattle drink more, the hauling increases.
The inspiration for the Wyoming fence came in summer 2024, at RDAR’s annual Round-Up event in Cremona, AB. The Mappin’s were speaking on how drought had impacted their operation, when RDAR’s VP, Research, Clinton Dobson approached them with an idea. “We hadn’t heard of Wyoming fence,” Terri says. “We came home, started doing some research, and decided to give it a whirl.” They applied to PREP and built four fences (two at eight feet high, two at twelve) to test how fence height affects snow accumulation. The Wyoming fence concept is simple: slow the wind, hold the snow, and increase the chances of spring runoff making it into the dugouts. The Mappin’s see it as an experiment, but one they are hoping will pay off.
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