Rocky View County (RVC) council voted unanimously on Jan. 10 to draft a letter of support for the Stockmen’s Memorial Foundation (SMF), in their application for a federal governmental grant that would help them digitize their large archive of cancelled brand files.
Reached after the meeting, SMF executive director Scott Grattidge said if their grant application is successful, the foundation would be able to hire someone this spring to complete the digitization of the organization’s thousands of archived brand files, which date from to the 1800s all the way to 1980.
He added it’s almost 50,000 files the SMF is trying to digitize – a process that has been in place for the last five years.
“If we’re successful with the grant, it would enable us to hire a contract for the position to finish digitizing these files, that we could then store electronically,” he said. “Then, using metadata, the public could search for the file more easily from all over the world on a digital basis.
“Ideally, it would be a two-year contract that we would try to finish up the remainder of the digitization of the files,” he added.
Established in 1980, the Stockmen’s Memorial Foundation is a Cochrane-based organization focused on preserving Alberta’s ranching and agricultural history. The foundation formed by act of provincial legislation to commemorate Alberta’s livestock legacy.
According to Grattidge, the foundation stewards historical ranching artifacts, including hundreds of boxes they received from the Ministry of Agriculture for cancelled horse and cattle brand files.
In addition to their large database of historic brand files, the foundation also features the Bert Sheppard Stockmen’s Foundation Library and Archives, which boasts literature on western Canadian history and ranching, as well as a museum and art gallery.
The foundation is housed in the Cochrane RancheHouse and is open Tuesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
