Alberta's ranching heritage occupies an important place in the province's historical consciousness. Trails and Trials: Markets and Land Use in the Alberta Beef Cattle Industry, 1881-1948 documents the development of the beef cattle industry in Alberta from its open-range ranching phase to the beginnings of the modern era. This narrative history documents how the beef cattle industry responded to the challenges following the end of the open-range era through two world wars and the Great Depression.

Trails and Trials: Markets and Land Use in the Alberta Beef Cattle Industry, 1881-1948 is a story of struggle, victories, and defeats, as a romanticized industry struggled to survive and mature in the real world. It provides a new case study of Canada's economic development and settlement history.

Maxwell L. Foran has been working in the field of Western Canadian history for over thirty years and has published widely on various urban, rural, and cultural topics. He is a professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary.

Maxwell L. Foran's profile page

Trails and Trials does a superb job of filling a conspicuous gap in Alberta's agricultural history..

?Ian MacLachlan, Great Plains Research