Wearing jeans and a black T-shirt under the glare of a late-summer afternoon sun, Chris Waefler waved a floating puff of dust away from his line of sight, swept a trickle of sweat off of his brow and squinted into the sun.
“Keep that length, keep that length. Hands forward,” he said, spinning and following as a horse and rider leapt over a jump and trotted past him, stirring up more dust. “Good, good. Try to be a little more aggressive in changing that lead. Make sure she doesn’t drift over to the shoulder.”
Nearby, his partner Morgan Moore shared advice with another rider in the W-Ranch Equine Centre’s riding corral.
Off in the distance, just past the property’s 100-plus-year-old home, about half a dozen Canadian and Swiss Warmblood horses grazed in a pasture – a field bordered by sudden granite hills, walls rising out of the ground around sections of the approximately 280 acres that make up the ranch.
A few yards away from where Chris and Morgan gave tips to novice riders, Chris’ mom, Renate, with a young granddaughter in tow, climbed into an old milk house now equipped with a commercial mixer and containers of baking ingredients – and prepared for an afternoon of cooking.
Every few minutes, the piercing whinny of the farm’s founding Swiss Warmblood stallion, Killian, pierced the tranquility of the sunny afternoon.
Driving into this stretch of Ontario where Canadian Shield cliffs mark the northern edge of cottage country’s trees and lakes, you wouldn’t expect to find a working farm. But at the equine ranch, tucked into a corner of Carling Township just north of Parry Sound, horseback riding takes place 365 days a year – among a myriad of other traditional features of farm living.
Although settlers once sought out free District of Parry Sound land in order to farm it in the late 1800s, most quickly learned the rocky terrain made agriculture an almost impossible way to make a living. In the district, there are only a few green spots like the one the W-Ranch sits in, and even they feature an everlasting battle with rock. But for members of the Waefler family, work on their farm among the rocks is the making of a dream – a dream they started when they arrived from Europe, bringing Killian and five other horses in crates aboard Canadian-bound planes in 2000.
“That’s why we like it, we’re used to rock,” Chris said with a laugh as he described the country he grew up in.
Working as a blacksmith for 25 years in Switzerland, Chris’ father Peter, now 59, dreamed of owning his own piece of land with his own horses – a difficult prospect in his European homeland, where most large parcels of property were either passed on generation to generation, or sold for small fortunes. Although he rented land to raise a foal and was a competitive horse-carriage driver, Peter kept looking for a place to start a farm of his own.
After a trip to Canada in the late 1990s, the couple decided to follow in the footsteps of a relative who started a milk farm in Quebec, find their dreamland and move. Their search ended with the plot of land sitting across from an inlet of Georgian Bay below the rocky hills in Carling Township.
Sitting at a table on the family’s deck last fall, Peter explained how important it was to leave his European home to pursue his goals.
“There is no way you can do this in Switzerland,” he said, in broken English, as he continues to learn the new language.
With help from Chris and Morgan, Peter explained the challenges of moving across an ocean.
The move, taking two adult children and several horses into a country with a different language, shocked some Swiss friends and neighbours.
“Some (friends) are okay, some can’t believe it,” Peter recalled. “They said, ‘why would we do that?’”
Moving the horses that now make up the farm’s breeding stock proved the most challenging. Moving Killian, a stallion, had to be completed before the horse turned two – or the pile of paperwork would go from about two centimeters of forms to about 10 centimetres. The family just made it, as Killian turned two in transit.
Today on the farm, the Waeflers have several head of beef, sell five or six dozen eggs a day, maintain an extensive vegetable plot, farm various crops, including hay, and, in Renate’s case, sell a variety of baked goods to visitors and at a nearby farmers’ market. The family admits, running the farm isn’t stress-free. They plow snow, cut firewood and Chris works for township road crews and contractors to keep the farm running.
“You don’t know what to expect,” says Renate, 56. “We’ve had some fun. It’s not always easy, but when the family holds together, it’s not a problem. You have to work together, pull the same end of the rope. You can have a lot of dreams when you move like this.”
Horses are the mainstay of the W-Ranch, where Chris, an FEI level three coach (the FEI – Federation Equestre International, is the international body governing equestrian sport), and Morgan, an Ontario Equestrian Federation instructor, offer hunter, jumper and dressage lessons, training for competitive and pleasure riders and summer day camps.
With a full jumping course in their summer corral, as well as miles of trails and country roads, and the recent addition of an all-season 60-by-140-foot indoor arena, rarely a day goes by without visiting riders – many who clearly call the farm their home away from home as they help clean out stalls and sweep out the barn before taking their horse out to the ring for a lesson or practice session. The Waeflers also offer boarding for area horse owners and will help train horses for competition.
But the original Warmbloods and their offspring demand most of the attention. The horses, bred for competitive hunter, jumper and dressage industries, are marketed by Morgan and Chris, who has taken his original Warmbloods to competitions throughout Ontario – their success marked by a wall of ribbons and photos in the farm’s tack room.
The spirited stallion, Killian, from a long line of successful show-jumping bloodlines, was the reserve champion among four-year-olds at the 2002 Ontario Dressage Championships.
Although the Waeflers’ horse farm sits quite a few miles away from the nearest hub of horse industry, in the Greater Toronto Area, their Warmbloods continue to attract attention, selling into southern Ontario and the U.S. The descendents of Killian and his Swiss mares that were foaled and trained at the ranch are just reaching the stage where they are old enough to be shown competitively.
Last year, a six-year-old mare, Viola, who was sold in January of 2008, had a very successful year in an adult amateur division, placing well enough to make it to the national championships at the Royal Winter Fair in November. Viola was also named top Canadian Warmblood Hunter of the year last year. Hunters are judged on their ability to navigate an untimed jumping course, dressage competitors are judged on their display of movement techniques on a flat untimed course, while jumpers are judged on their ability to get through a jump course in the fastest time.
A four-year-old gelding, Kraemer, sold by the Waeflers was shown in a jumper development series by his new owners and placed fifth overall in his division in 2008.
“You have to market them really well,” said Chris, who leaves most of the marketing work to Morgan, a Parry Sounder who he met through a shared passion for horses after arriving in Canada. “If you don’t enjoy it, you don’t do it.
“The interesting part for me is, when breeding horses, to see where they go, how they do,” he added during a tour of the ranch as Morgan pointed out Kira, the first Warmblood born on the farm in 2001.
“We’d like to do more with the horses, but the market isn’t always strong,” said Morgan. “It can be a harsh business.”
That’s why breeding has grown to encompass teaching, boarding and the day camp, during which children – both experienced and inexperienced riders – aged 8 to 13 years old learn horse care, take daily riding lessons or trail rides, do arts and crafts, swim and play games.
“We have to do things like that,” said Morgan. “We also do the day camp because lots of kids want to ride, but don’t have a horse.”
Chris, who was 25 when his family, including his 26-year-old sister Monika, moved, says Canada is very much his home. Now with 22 horses on the property, the family dream remains a lot of work, but the Waeflers have come a long way since the days of frantically chasing down paperwork for crated horses arriving in Montréal and the birth of their first Canadian-born Warmblood in 2001.
“For me, it was an exciting idea,” said Chris. “Sometimes Morgan and I wonder about, is it worth it? Farming is a lifestyle, more than a hobby. It’s a lot of work. But for now, I’m still enjoying it. This is my home. I like being here, and I will always have horses.”
As if punctuating the thought, Killian, his head sticking out a barn window with a mouth full of hay, dropped the hay, stretched out his neck, bared his teeth and let out another loud whinny – sending a few birds flying up from a dusty patch of soil between the barns.
Exchanging a look, Chris and Morgan smiled.
Greener pastures
Date: Mar 09, 2010
Waefler Farm overview.
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