(Tales from the Midway Ranch)
By Frederick William Ings, 1862 - 1936
"Fred Ings was one of those rare people who recognized that he lived in a significant era of history.
Born in Prince Edward Island in 1863, he came to Calgary in 1882, the year before the railroad arrived. He worked on the Bar U and other ranches alongside such notables as John Ware, the freed slave who became an expert cowboy and rancher, and Harry Longdebough, also known as the Sundance Kid, the outlaw who teamed up with Butch Cassidy.
Fred was a cowhand when roundups ranged from Calgary to the U.S. border, when no fences crossed the vast grasslands. Late in his life he wrote about ranching history for newspapers and magazines. His memoirs ... show his keen eye for detail and an encyclopedic knowledge for the history of ranching in southern Alberta.....Fred's knack for storytelling, coupled with his grasp of the facts, make Before the Fences essential reading for those who want to understand the West and its past."
-Calgary Herald
With his remarkable memory, humor, anecdotes, and poignant human (and animal) stories, Fred Ings brings to life the brief bygone era of the open range and the first white settlement of southern Alberta. He established the OH ranch in 1883 and later Midway Ranch near Nanton. Completed in 1936 when Ings was the last survivor of his pioneer period and first published in 1980, Before the Fences is his tribute to his contemporaries - princes, cattle barons, Northwest Mounted Police, outlaws, cowboys and courageous pioneers. Full of action and the sensibility of its time, it is an invitation to join him around the campfire and on the long roundup trail from the Highwood to the US border.
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Nov. 2002 Black and white photographs 9” X 6”, 185 pages $20.00 paperback History, autobiography To Purchase Contact Linda: Phone:(403)646-3257 lindaloree@hotmail.com PO Box 1313 Nanton, Alberta T0L 1R0 |
