Trailblazer
George Lane
 When George Lane was 16 he rode on a cattle drive from Oklahoma to Montana. That experience made him a cowboy for life. After 20 years in Montana, where he served as a U.S. Army scout, and worked on ranches, he crossed the border, to work as foreman of the North West Cattle Company’s ranch near Pekisko, Alberta. Before long he was regarded as one of the best cattlemen on the range.
He bought into the sprawling Bar U Ranch in 1902, and knowing the settlers would require good draft horses as they advanced westward, he built the largest percheron breeding operation in Canada. He was host to Edward, Prince of Wales during the Prince’s visit to Alberta in 1919. The Prince enjoyed ranching life so much that he bought the Beddington Ranch next to the Bar U on George Lane’s advice, and changed the name to the E.P.
In Oct., 1886 George Lane had been to Calgary where his wife Elizabeth had delivered one of their 8 children. He was riding back to the Bar U when he came upon a pack of 6 wolves feasting on a Bar U cow they’d just killed. When he rode closer the wolves attacked George and his horse, and he was able to shoot 5 of them. He told his friend Charlie Russell about the event, and Russell did a painting of the episode in 1914, titled “A Question of Survival.” Another Trailblazer, Bert Shephard commissioned Richard Roenisch to do a larger than life sculpture based on the painting, and it’s now located on the Bar U Ranch.
George Lane rode across the great divide, September 1925.
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