Keeping the Ojibwe horse alive at Quetico Provincial Park

Grey Raven Ranch made its annual summer visit to the day-use beach in Quetico Provincial Park this long weekend.

The Canadian nonprofit offered visitors the chance to freely enter the pen and learn more about the Ojibwe horse, one of Canada's rarest horse breeds. It is now looking to expand into the U.S. for the benefit and preservation of the breed.

Within the first day alone, well over 100 people came to meet and greet two of over a dozen horses that live at the ranch in Seine River First Nation.

"It's been really a struggle for the caretakers of these horses to keep them alive and to help them thrive," said Heather O'Connor, a volunteer for many years with the Grey Raven Ranch.

"So they come to the park every Labour Day weekend in Quetico because this used to be their natural habitat. So it's part of the park's management plan to include this piece of natural heritage and cultural heritage of the park."

As part of the ranch's awareness efforts, O'Connor also read the picture book Runs with the Stars or Wiijibibamatoon-Anangoonan, which she wrote during an artist residency at the provincial park.

"It's in English and English-Ojibwe so that it can be used in schools for kids to learn about this piece of Canadian history, Indigenous history and learn about the horses. And, hopefully, grow up to be wanting to...take care of the horses and conserve them themselves," said O'Connor.

According to O'Connor, these horses once ran wild in the woods and lived for centuries alongside the Ojibwe people by helping them run their trap lines and haul wood. However, they almost disappeared in 1977 when the government labelled them 'nuisance horses' and many people, including farmers, took to slaughtering them.

To prevent the government from culling the herd, O'Connor explained that the people of the Lac La Croix First Nation smuggled the four remaining horses in the area across the border to a farmer in Minnesota, who let them live loose on his land.

Eventually, these horses were bred with a Spanish Mustang allowing the herd to grow to the 175 it has today.

Kimberlee Campbell, a U.S. citizen working with Grey Raven Ranch, and her partner Darcy Whitecrow from Seine River First Nation are longtime caretakers of the Ojibwe horse. They have worked to breed the horses, raise awareness of the breed and get other people involved in their caretaking and breeding.

She said they have brought the horses to the provincial park almost every Labour Day for over 10 years.

As someone who is 70-years-old now and does "not have too many years left", Campbell said she is always searching for the next generation to continue the project.

"That's the way I got this horse project. It was handed off to me by people who were getting older and needed to retire out of it, and so it's an intergenerational, I think, labour of love," said Campbell.