Kootenay Alpine Cheese made in the old fashioned tradition may have you yodeling in the Kootenays

Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada

These Alpine raw organic cheeses are so good you can taste the crisp mountain air in every bite and may even find yourself yodeling out loud.  Made on-farm at the Kootenay Alpine Cheese Company nestled in the shadow of the Skimmerhorn Mountains, the cheeses are handcrafted using traditional methods.

Denise and Wayne Harris bought the dairy farm near Creston 15 years ago when Wayne decided to leave the lumber company he was working for in Regina. “Passion for farming drove me back home,” says Wayne from his farm office. The farm relies on good help and the family children.  The two full time employees share the farms’ vision, and the Harris children have all played an integral role in improving the farm and developing the fromagerie. 

The dairy shows commitment and dedication to quality, sustainability and viability and is a stellar example of the future of small dairies.  The Harrises’ entire operation is certified organic - the herd, feed, fromagerie, and crops.  It has been a premeditated long journey to processing their cheese.  “It wasn’t until 2008 that we were financially stable enough to build the fromagerie, but planning and taking courses started in 2004,” says Wayne.

Wayne says that going organic requires a change in mentality and creates new challenges.  Switching from commodity milk production, where all the milk is produced and picked up in a milk truck, to producing, processing  and marketing value-added products on farm  is the biggest part of the curve and they are still in that curve.  Supplying and sourcing markets is a constant challenge and time consuming.

The 80-cow closed milking herd is made up of Holsteins, with a few Guernseys and crosses with Normandy, Guernsey, and Swedish Reds.  The Harrises are breeding cattle to manipulate the protein components for the cheese.  Ultimately, they are trying to create cattle that are disposed to produce milk from less grain, do better on forage and are heat tolerant.

All cows, young stock and milking cows, are intensively grazed during summer on pasture located on the farm, and fed in the barn in winter.  Most of the feed is produced on-farm, where they grow hay for forage and some grain, with off-farm sourcing when needed, such as flax.  The Harrises own 100 acres and lease another 400 acres through six-year leases in the area. 

Utilizing nutrition for herd health is key. “Overall, ruminants are not designed to digest most grains,” explains Wayne, “We have found that our cattle develop subclinical acidosis caused by too much grain consumption, leading to a lowered immune system.  When we feed them less grain, many disease issues fade away.  At Kootenay Alpine, cows get fed eight pounds of grain per day in summer and 12 pounds per day in winter.  The feed is composed of mixed grains of barley, oats, peas and flax, plus a mineral mix. 

They do not make or use silage, as the clostridial bacterial that silage can contain can interfere with the cheesemaking process for the kinds of hard aged Alpine cheese they produce.  Instead, the cows are pastured or fed hay from forages of alfalfa and grass. 

The cows are pastured on perennial ryegrass and clover until the beginning of November when it becomes too wet and cold.  The heifers are rotated onto fresh paddocks every 24 hours and cows every 12 hours. “We always give them a fresh paddock in afternoon, because they graze more in the evenings,” explains Wayne. 

The barn is an open barn with straw and shavings for bedding and open individual sleeping stalls-the cattle choose where they want to sleep.  The manure, straw, and shavings are composted as per organic requirements.  The compost is spread on fields that need fertilizer based on their soil test results.

Cows are milked twice per day - producing up to 30 litres per day.  Much of the cheese is made in summer when the cows are on pasture, following the European tradition of making cheese when the flavours are most robust.  The cheese is handcrafted following the tradition of artisan cheese-makers, and is made using only the raw milk from the certified organic herd.  Each cheese is carefully aged in order to develop rich, complex flavours that are unique to their milk, farm, and region.

Written by Pamela Irving of Living Communications for OACC.  For more information: 902-893-7256 or oacc@nsac.ca


Posted April 2010