The Fourth Property Opens Fall 2026
Demand for our elk hunts keeps growing, so the ranch is growing with it. Our newest property — right out the lodge's back door on the Blackfoot Creek valley — opens for hunting this fall.
The demand for elk hunts has gone a little crazy the last few years, and we've answered it the only way we know how. We bought ground. We leased ground. And now Dunhams High Caliber Ranch runs three distinct properties, with a fourth opening this fall. That kind of growth doesn't happen by accident. It happens because hunters keep calling, the calendar keeps filling, and we'd rather expand our ground than turn good people away. After 30-plus years doing this as a family operation along the North Saskatchewan River valley, near Lloydminster, we know what it takes to hold a herd and hold a season. So we built more room to do both.
Let me walk you through what we've got. The first property sits in the Saskatchewan River valley, and it's classic parkland country: pine and poplar forest, open grass meadows, river hills, and cutlines you can glass for miles down. It's the kind of ground where a bull can bed in the timber all day and step out to feed at last light, and you'll be sitting there waiting because you read the wind right. The second is the classic prairie ranch, thick bush and buck brush, grass running between it, habitat that hasn't really changed in 150 years. Deer and elk have moved through that cover the same way for generations, and once you learn it, you can hunt it like you've lived there your whole life. These two pieces give us the variety that keeps the hunting honest. Some days you're glassing open feed. Some days you're slipping through brush so thick you smell the animal before you see it.
The third property is the lodge backyard, right on the Blackfoot Creek valley, and that's the one opening this fall. When I say backyard, I mean it. It's the ground out the door from where you sleep and eat. We've held it back, watched it, let it sit, and it shows. There's ATV access where you need it, so we're not breaking guys off at first light on a death march. There are timbered ridges that fall down into the creek bottom, and open feed where the elk want to be. It reads like elk country because it is elk country, and the best part is simple: nobody has hunted it. Not us, not anybody. The bulls on that ground have never been called to. They've never heard a bugle that wasn't real.
If you've hunted pressured ground, you understand exactly why that matters. A bull that's been called to a few times gets cagey. He hangs up out of range, he goes quiet, he learns. Fresh ground is a different animal, literally. You set up, you call, and he comes in like the textbook says he should, because nothing has ever taught him not to. New country hunts honest. The animals behave the way elk are supposed to behave, and for an archery hunter in the rut, that's about as good as it gets. We offer archery here, and the rut is when a bow really shines, because a committed bull will walk right into your lap.
These are Rocky Mountain elk, and they grow big northern bodies up here, 1,000+ pounds on the hoof. The bulls run the full range, from 300-inch 6x6 management animals all the way up to the non-typical giants that break 500 inches. The biggest we've ever taken went 628. I'm not telling you that to set an expectation on any one hunt, I'm telling you so you understand what this ground is capable of growing. The rut runs September into October, and it sells out a full year ahead. That's not a sales line. That's just what the calendar does.
Opening a fourth property isn't only about square footage. We've entered breeding partnerships and we're expanding the herd, because more good ground without more good animals on it doesn't do anyone any favors. That work takes years and it takes patience, and it's the unglamorous part of running a private ranch that most folks never see. But it's why the genetics on this place are what they are, and it's why we can keep offering the kind of bulls we do without grinding the herd down. We manage it like owners, because that's what we are. Rob and his son Josh run this operation hands-on. Our guides have 20-plus years on this land, and our cooks and lodge staff have been here 15 years or more. Nobody here is a booking agent. We're the people who live it.
A word on how a hunt with us actually works, because the structure matters as much as the ground. This is private land, which means no draws, no tags, no lottery. You book this season and you hunt this season. And every hunt is backed by our No Kill, No Pay guarantee, 100 percent. You get on a plane to Edmonton or Saskatoon, both about two and a half hours out, rent a vehicle, and drive in. There's no airport pickup and no jet to the lodge, never has been, and any outfit that promises you that is selling you something else. You check in around 11, eat lunch, confirm your rifle is zeroed at the range, and then you're hunting that same afternoon. We don't waste your daylight.
Here's the part you need to hear and act on. Our hunts are strictly limited every season, and the fourth property doesn't change that math much. Availability is limited to mature trophies dependent on the breeding program, and a number of bulls were taken out of the area last year. Once the calendar fills, it closes. There's no overbooking, no squeezing one more guy in, no exceptions. Fresh ground that's never been hunted, bulls that have never been called to, a herd we're actively building, all of it limited and all of it first come. If you've been thinking about an elk hunt, this is the fall to do it, and the spots on new ground will be the first to go. Call us at 780-871-1747 and we'll get you on the calendar before it's gone.