An Alberta drought isn’t new — but it’s getting worse | The Narwhal

You don’t have to peer very far into the past to see a different landscape in southern Alberta. The area now populated with farms, lush in the heat of the summer, was once mostly parched — drought-prone land with periods of abundance. First Nations lived with the land for generations, working that abundance and scarcity, following herds of bison which thrived on the resilient grasses of the prairies. But settlers arrived and so did irrigation, wetting fields for crops where once there were prairie grasses adapted to an arid climate; home to rattlesnakes, burrowing owls and pronghorn.

Source: An Alberta drought isn’t new — but it’s getting worse | The Narwhal