At Star 6 Ranch in Alberta’s Kananaskis Country, a lifelong bond with horses is shaping a powerful model of healing and stewardship.
Words :: Meghan J. Ward // photos :: Georgi Silckerodt
The sense of expansiveness is powerful at Star 6 Ranch, even amid the circle of structures, paddocks and timber fences that mark the property. Beyond a red-roofed barn and several small cabins, wild spaces beckon—open grassy meadows belted by poplars, the forested banks of the Kananaskis River and distant views flanked by the peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
It was into this land in Kananaskis Country, just off the Trans-Canada Highway, that Chloe Vance first stepped on a crisp day in November 2019, immediately knowing it was special. “I was like, I’m supposed to be here, but this makes no sense,” said Vance. “It felt like I was coming home or coming back to something.” Vance pinned a postcard from Star 6 to a bulletin board as a reminder of this calling, but it wouldn’t make sense for another two years.
On one level, Vance’s attraction to the equestrian vibes of Star 6 made sense. Raised in Ontario, she had grown up riding, training and competing alongside horses. She pursued this passion through university until she was introduced to the world of outdoor expeditions. With that introduction, her passions shifted: She sold her horse and dove into wilderness guiding. Vance and her husband, Rob, moved to the outdoor-loving community of Canmore, AB, in 2010.
Vance realized something had been missing from her life: horses. Immersing herself in their company, she began to heal.
Vance spent several years guiding before settling into a job in Canmore supporting Indigenous youth in the school system. Then, in 2016, challenges with infertility threw her into a downward spiral. In her path to healing, Vance realized something had been missing from her life: horses. Immersing herself in their company, she began to heal. To her astonishment, within a few months she discovered she was pregnant. Vance gave birth to a daughter, Quinn, in 2017, and eventually got back into the saddle training and riding horses. Inspired by her renewed connection with horses, she began coursework in equine therapy.
Vance was working with several nonprofits, including Spirit North, when she first visited Star 6 in 2019. At that time, the 80-acre property—founded four years prior by Banff’s Fiona Mactaggart—offered no formal programming, only potential. Mactaggart’s two-part vision was simple but profound: to share the land and foster resilience and healing in others. Then, in June of 2021, Mactaggart suffered a traumatic brain injury; it was an uncertain time for the family and the ranch.
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But it was precisely then that Vance met Mactaggart’s husband, Kevin, during a Spirit North event at Star 6. He asked if she might volunteer to support the horses. Vance jumped at the opportunity. That same summer, during a ride at Star 6, she had visions of community gatherings, ancestral connection and regeneration of the land. The experience was so powerful that she wrote a letter to Mactaggart, saying she felt they were meant to work together.
Vance’s letter arrived during Mactaggart’s recovery, and once she was out of the hospital the pair met at Star 6. “Chloe and I collided. We came together at an incredibly vulnerable time, not just in my life, but also in the life of the ranch,” said Mactaggart. The injury had strengthened Mactaggart’s resolve to position Star 6 as a place of healing and connection. Vance’s teaching and outdoor educational background, decades of experience with horses and vision for Star 6 were much needed and nothing short of miraculous. In time, Star 6 would focus on land stewardship, relational horsemanship and land-based learning, with Vance in the saddle as the director of programming and herd guardian.
Since stepping into the role, Vance’s hats have been many, but the load has lightened as new team members, including her husband, have come on board. Outside her official titles, she’s still driving the tractor, feeding chickens, gardening and hauling hay. As herd guardian, she is responsible for the horses’ care, maintenance and training, as well as their feeding, using established rotational grazing zones to help regenerate the land’s natural ecology. As programming director, she collaborates with the Star 6 team to design custom, land-based experiences and hosts the diverse groups who use the property’s venues for gatherings such as wellness retreats, educational groups, Elders’ crafting circles and trauma support. “To have Chloe’s unflagging support of the potential of the Star 6 Ranch is something that I lean on in the good times and in the bad times,” says Mactaggart.
Yet, of all the hats Vance wears, there’s one that has an extra touch of magic. Building on her personal experience of healing and connection through horses, Vance has developed Equine Connection sessions, which focus on self-discovery, reflection and personal growth through interactions with the Star 6 herd.
Horses have long been used as a therapeutic aid for a wide range of conditions, including anxiety, depression, PTSD and addiction. Vance’s approach weaves together relational horsemanship, neuroscience, equine behaviour science, traditional nature-based wisdom and transformative coaching, as well as formal training in horse medicine leadership (focusing on the somatic system) and certification with the EQUUS Academy in New Mexico. Vance says we can learn a lot from horses as masters of survival: “They’ve been around for about 56 million years. They are one of the longest-standing species, albeit in slightly different forms. To exist for that long as a prey animal means you’ve got to be highly attuned, highly aware and perceptive.”
As herd guardian, she is responsible for the horses’ care, maintenance and training, as well as their feeding, using established rotational grazing zones to help regenerate the land’s natural ecology.
Vance’s work is rooted in Indigenous knowledge and the belief that all things hold a medicine meant for the world. The sensitivity and intelligence of horses make them particularly adept at encouraging their human counterpart to self-reflect. “Horses give us feedback to reflect in a way that humans can’t because humans will intellectualize it,” she says.
Vance’s one-on-one Equine Connection sessions (small groups are also welcome) begin by simply observing the herd, which gives her the information she needs to help guide the next step. At times, it brings up a reaction in the participants. Often, the horses—whom Vance considers to be equal partners in the process—reveal the next course of action.
“I definitely now have a sense of different horses and their individual medicines, where they tend to step in, the type of situation that might be happening for that person.” As an example, she points to a grey-coloured steed named Gandalf. “He’s very strong, steady, grounded. I’ve seen him step in many times now for people who are in some sort of relationship challenge.”
Vance has a repertoire of exercises to use as needed, but Equine Connection sessions are fluid, unfolding one sequence at a time. For Vance, it’s like following a thread of actions, reactions and, for the most part, the unspoken moments transpiring between horse and human.
“Horses give us feedback to reflect in a way that humans can’t because humans will intellectualize it.”
Mactaggart herself has experienced Equine Connection sessions with Vance. “If you can bury your own ego and your own hubris and open yourself up to raw observation,” says Mactaggart, “the wisdom that falls in, that Chloe channels, is overwhelmingly remarkable.”
Vance sees how these sessions impact not only the individual but also the Bow Valley and beyond. Witnessing the magic that has been finding her purpose at Star 6 has given her further evidence. “When we reconnect with our most authentic self, we can then put that out there,” she says. “That’s when we can be an engaged community member. That’s when we can be the best partner, the best parent that we can be. And then it starts to bring it out in other people. And that is, then, the interconnected web.”
To learn more or book a session visit star6ranch.com.
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