A Tłı̨chǫ woman is running a farm down in Alder Flats, Alberta.
It’s called Hendrickson LiveStock and is home to eight pigs, 12 cattle, 80 chickens and 50 turkeys.
“I enjoy it, so I’m thinking that we might get a couple more,” says Brittany Hendrickson, a 33-year-old woman originally from Behchokǫ̀ N.W.T.
“I would never thought of me being on a farm,” says Hendrickson. (Photo courtesy of Brittany Hendrickson)
Hendrickson says she left her community due to unstable work. But quickly found herself with 80 acres of land and five pregnant cows after she and her husband moved down south in an attempt to restart their life.
“And it was my first time,” she says. “I moved here to be with my daughter and take care of the animals.”
The cost of living is so high she thought she’d try her hand at tending to livestock, among other things.
“I started off with hatching eggs, we got an incubator to hatch chicks, and then we sell them,” she says.
When a tree came down on the coop in February, all the chickens, turkeys and roosters became free-range. “I would never have thought of me being on a farm,” she adds.
Hendrickson says she didn’t realize how expensive running a farm could be.
The home of Hendrickson LiveStock. ( Photo courtesy of Brittany Hendrickson)
“It does cost a lot to feed and power everything,” she says. “It’s very expensive.”
With her husband working two-week rotations at the mine in Hay River or Fort McMurray, Hendrickson was left to care for the farm and its furry friends.
“I was chopping wood for the first time, I was starting fires. I was doing everything on my own for the first time,” she says.
She says she pictures her life like that one episode of The Simple Life, an early 2000s reality show featuring heiress Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie stumbling around a dairy farm.
“Like a meme,” she says. “That’s what they picture me as.”
One day, she says she’d like to be able to supply northern communities with fresh produce, pork and poultry.
“It’d be nice to go back home and provide for everyone,” she says.
“The cows are always out waiting for me because they know I’m going to give them a treat, which is grain,” she says. (Photo courtesy of Brittany Hendrickson)
Hendrickson says she’d also like to own goats and open a petting zoo so all her friends and family living in the north can visit her.
In the meantime, Hendrickson says she’s looking for the perfect spot to display her Tłı̨chǫ flag.
