Gil and Darlene Hegel

My name is Darlene Hegel, and together with my husband Gil, we own and operate Valta Bison from our family farm in Valhalla Centre, a small farming community in the Peace Region.

My Norwegian great-grandparents and their family were among the original pioneering families who arrived here over the “Edson Trail” to begin a new life in the wide open spaces of the Peace Country. Together with other families they began to build a community with a decidedly Scandinavian flare. Thus the name chosen for the community: Valhalla, Norse heaven.

In 1945, my father Raymond Mosand returned from World War II to marry my mom Hazel and become a Peace Country farmer. Good fortune came their way. One farm was for sale, and the owner desired to sell her land to a returning soldier.

Today this is still our family home, and we raise our bison in the same way that my mom and dad raised their cattle herd ... with gentleness and respect for the land and for the animals.