Full disclosure: First impressions matter, and if that is how one first sees the rolling hills south of Longview, where the Prairies get ready for the Rockies, it’s easy to feel irrationally fond of it.

But, try working a ranch down there that’s been in the family for more than a century, like the Cartwrights, the Crosses and the Gardiners.

Then, it is not irrational to develop such strong ties to the land, based on decades of observing the interdependence of everything in the environment, how there is not a solitary cause that does not have an effect, or an action that does not have a reaction, that one develops a lover’s passion for it. One might then easily slip into the role of steward. For if one does not, who else should?

So it is that an alliance of ranchers — the Pekisko Group –now argues the land’s case before an Energy Resources Conservation Board panel. Petro-Canada wants to build a sour gas pipeline through an area of outstanding natural beauty due west of where they run their cattle, south of the Eden Valley Indian reserve. The ranchers hate the thought.

Two things make this situation interesting. To read more: