It is the first Saturday in April and young Miocene rancher Antonia Westwick has already been out checking cows.
“We are trying to get a calf to nurse on one of our other cows - we have a cow that isn’t doing too good so we are trying to find the calf a new mom for now,” she says during a phone interview.
She adds they are expecting 100 new calves and have 13 to go.
There is still snow on the ground at the Westwick Ranch and they received another inch overnight.
Antonia has lived on the ranch all her life and she and her mom Amber Nehring are keeping it going.
Her dad Jim Westwick died in November 2018.
The Westwick Ranch belonged to his pioneering parents Fred and Stella Westwick (nee Fox) who moved to the Cariboo in the early 1900s.
Jim was born at Dugan Lake in 1953 and his family moved to the ranch when he was one year old.
Antonia plans to work and live on the ranch for the rest of her life.
Growing up she went to Sacred Heart Catholic School and then to Lake City Secondary Columneetza and Williams Lake campuses.
She graduated in 2021 and is a first year student in the Applied Sustainable Ranching Program at Thompson Rivers University Williams Lake.
READ MORE: Agapow takes home TRU applied sustainable ranching program’s bull pen award
“I am learning lots and meeting a lot of nice people who are interested in ranching, which is great,” she says of the program. “We are hosting another student Aisling Ives - she is from Valemount.”
The program started in September and is a two-year program. Right now the students are learning about human resources and the business aspects of ranching.
While she possesses knowledge from the family ranch she hopes the program will help improve her understanding, especially around pigs and sheep.
“We just got three pigs. I’m not a huge fan of them, but I did raise some in 4-H so I kind of know what I’m doing.”
Antonia recommends the program.
“I absolutely don’t love spread sheets but you learn a lot and they help you for the future.”
Living on the ranch is quiet and beautiful, which is an aspect she enjoys.
“I love every single part of it. I can see Dad here.”
Antonia uses a drone to check for cows and said she has horses, but doesn’t ride them unless she needs to access a very rocky area on the 4,000-acre ranch.
“If a horse can get somewhere, then I can get there on a quad,” she says of her preferred mode of transport.
Aside from ranching, she was thinking of helping show bulls for the 84th Annual Williams Lake Bull Show and Sale this year, but due to timing will probably wait until next year. She has helped as a fill-in past years.
Standing six feet tall, she said her height does not come from the Westwick side.
Amber grew up in Prince George and moved to Williams Lake to work for the ministry of forests in 1989 and retired in 2016 to work full-time on the ranch.
“My uncle Bill Black , my mom’s brother-in-law, just moved up here and he is helping us out,” Antonia says.
Aside from ranching she often photographs life as a young rancher and shares some humorous events on her Facebook, including some of herself mudbogging in her grad dress.
As the interview comes to an end, Antonia says she has to head out and feed cows, fix some fences that were damaged when a big fir tree fell on them last fall and then hopes to head into a bull sale that was happening at the Williams Lake Stockyards.
READ MORE: Williams Lake Bull Show and Sale marks 85th year April 13 and 14
news@wltribune.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter