Sharon and Peter Butala
Sharon and Peter Butala have turned back the clock 125 years to allow a new chance for conservation of the native prairie. In 1996, they donated their 13,100-acre (5,300 ha) ranch near Eastend to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) to establish The Old Man on His Back Prairie and Heritage Preserve (OMB). For this initiative, they received a number of conservation awards, both federal and provincial.
They came to this action though very different routes. Sharon left a career teaching at the University of Saskatchewan to move to southwest Saskatchewan when she married rancher Peter Butala in the 1970s. She began writing about the land, spirit and people of rural Saskatchewan and has produced 15 publications. Two of her best selling books, The Perfection of the Morning and Wild Stone Heart, explore her discovery of personal and cultural roots of identity in "the glowing, fragile plains, the radiant hills" of the landscape that she adopted.
Sharon Butala is described as "one of the most significant Saskatchewan writers to emerge in this province since the days of Sinclair Ross and W.O. Mitchell." Her contributions in all fields have led to many other honours including the Canada 125 Commemorative Medal, the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal, an honourary doctorate from the University of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Writer's Guild Achievement Award, and the Order of Canada.
Peter Butala developed a strong connection to the land growing up on the ranch that had been in his family for generations. Shortly after he took it over from his father in the 1960's, he discovered the bodies of dead birds and the absence of new nests. It was around the time that DDT was introduced into agriculture. Reading the influential book by Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, he was moved by its message of warning concerning the degradation of our environment. Peter could relate to the issues directly through his own life experience.
The combination of their concern and love for the land they inhabited led to the OMB Preserve. Through their generosity, NCC can now conserve one of the largest single tracts of pristine native prairie grass in Canada. The Butalas received just enough money to retire, plus the satisfaction of seeing the preservation of the landscape they loved and the opportunity to be involved in management decisions.
The book Old Man on His Back: Portrait of a Prairie Landscape by Sharon Butala and photographer Courtney Milne documents the sweeping vistas of the open prairie and an abundance of wildflowers and grassland birds. OMB is a haven for wildlife rarely seen by most Canadians. Small herds of Pronghorn Antelope frequent the property, and imperiled species such as the Burrowing Owl, Long-billed Curlew, and Ferruginous Hawk are often sighted.
In an area where the prairie landscape is under ongoing threat of cultivation, this property is a bulwark for conservation, surrounded on three sides by federally- and provincially-owned community pasture, forming a large block of intact native prairie.
The property is now co-managed through a long-term agreement between Saskatchewan Agriculture, Food and Rural Revitalization, Saskatchewan Environment, and NCC. Activities include reseeding of over 1,000 acres of cultivated land to native grasses. Plains Bison were introduced in December 2003 and continue to thrive.