History of Hippie Cows
Photos courtesy of Dr. Don Richardson
Hippie cows are a local legend, especially amongst residents of Tlell. The debate over their existence is fuelled by a misunderstanding around what hippie cows actually are – because while feral cows do roam the coasts, Haida Gwaii’s hippie cows officially died out years ago.

Doctor Don Richardson of Richardson Ranch says the shaggy, horned cows known as “hippie cows” are actually called Scottish Highland cattle. Around 200 of the bovines were brought to Haida Gwaii 50 years ago by a Vancouver company, Graham Island Cattle Company, and set free just east of Tow Hill. The company hired Jim Emery and his young son to watch over the cattle. They were given no food for the cattle, who were expected to forage around the dunes. Winter brought flooding and freezing temperatures that killed all six bulls and a majority of the cows.

Graham Island Cattle Company filed for bankruptcy the next year. The remaining cattle were bought up by locals, namely Jim Abbott and Ward & Bellis, the latter setting up a farm on the highway between Port Clements and Masset. The Island’s Highland cattle were being bred with other cattle species in an attempt to weed out the undesirable Highland traits. All cattle were allowed to roam the highways freely, as before the mid 1980s, Highway 16 was only recognized as a Class 1 highway. It took a high speed collision between a milk cow and an ambulance carrying a pregnant woman (everyone in the ambulance lived, the cow did not) to reclassify the highway as Class 2 and outlaw any road wandering livestock.

“The Scottish Highland cattle were a bit of a nuisance,” Richardson says. “They weren’t a super productive breed of cattle.” And as of 30 years ago, “There are no Scottish Highland cattle left on the Charlottes.”

The feral cows of East Beach, separate from the owned cows wandering near Masset, have a more colourful past. In the early 1900s, homesteaders were encouraged by the government to build their homes on Haida Gwaii, one such homestead became Cape Ball. These homesteaders brought in cattle, in addition to the already present feral cattle in the area, and began to breed them.

Cape Ball and similar homesteads were deserted between 1908 and 1914 as men left to join the war, and they let their cattle go feral in their absence. The last occupant left in the late 1950s. Cape Ball was left to fall into ruin, but the descendants of those cows still wander today.

In the 1980s, these descendants were being shot at and killed by hunters without any real repercussions. However, owned and tagged cattle from Richardson Ranch were also wandering the dunes and hunted as feral cows. After nine Ranch cows were illegally killed and butchered in a single incident, the Ranch fenced their cattle in. The only cows wandering East Beach now are feral cows, unowned by anyone and not classified as wildlife. Because of the law passed to protect owned cattle, however, it is illegal to hunt these feral cows.