From the June 2026 issue of Maclean’s
The Farmers Who Fought a Data Centre—and Won
Alberta wants to profit from the AI boom by building power- and water-hungry data centres. In one town, the neighbours had other ideas.
Twin Lakes Ranch has been in Brenda Ralston’s family for more than a hundred years. In 1918, her great-grandfather bought 320 acres of gently rolling prairie northeast of Calgary and bred cattle to feed the frontier. Over the next century, his descendants did the same. “My grandpa farmed it. My dad farmed it. My husband and I farm it,” says Ralston. One day, she expects to hand it down to her son, who’s studying animal sciences at the University of Saskatchewan. “He’ll be the fifth generation,” she says. In late May of 2025, Ralston received a letter calling that future into question.
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