Real Land Lords

    I am still trying to avoid other tasks, so I will post another one about land ownership,  having just published one about Bill Gates now being the top private farm landowner in the United States. You should not be left with the impression that he owns a lot of land, compared to some others who own a lot more. The Queen, for example, or the Pope who has "nearly two hundred millions acres of land." Ted Turner used to be at the very top of the list of the top landowners, which irritated me because he also had Jane Fonda. He has been supplanted by John Malone who owns over 2 million acres of land as well as the Atlanta Braves about which I am less irritated.  Here are the top twenty-five:

You will notice at #6 our very own Irving family, but the figure provided there just indicates recent purchases. They own over 1 million acres of land (if such a large figure bothers you, it is less in hectares.) 

   You should also notice #5 on the list, the charming Mr. Stan Kroenke, who bought 200,000 hectares in British Columbia - the former Douglas Lake Cattle Company or Douglas Lake Ranch. The Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club members and many others in British Columbia used to fish in the remote lakes on the property, but Mr. Kronke locked the gates. He did the same thing when he purchased the half million acre Waggoner Ranch in North Texas. The courts up here recently decided that Mr. Kroenke had the right to deny access and it was determined that the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club, who fought Kroenke in court, would have to pay his legal fees. 

Sources:
"Court Rules 2 B.C. Lakes Cannot Be Publicly Accessed, Siding With Canada's Largest Cattle Ranch," CBC News, Mar. 5, 2021.
"Billionaire Wins Legal Battle to Deny Public Access to B.C. Lakes," Cheryl Santa Maria, The Weather Channel, March 10, 2021.
"U.S. Billionaire Wins Battle to Keep Anglers Off His Giant B.C. Ranch, Vancouver Sun, Mar. 7, 2021.
"Annals of Geography," "Promised Land," David Owen, The New Yorker, Feb. 8, 2021 (for the statistic about the land ownership of the Catholic Church.)

The Bonus:
The table above came from The Land Report: The Magazine of the American Landowner. You will find it fascinating. It contains ads such as the one by Boone Pickens a couple of year ago when he put up for sale his Mesa Vista Ranch - 65,000 acres for $220,000,000. It is an oasis with the "World's Best Quail Hunting." 

In Scotland, one can roam freely anywhere and in some Scandinavian countries, the notion of 'trespassing' is a rather alien one. For more on that subject see the Chapter, "Going Nowhere and Everywhere' in Simon Winchester's Land: How the Hunger For Ownership Shaped the Modern World.