CHACACHAS · TREATY 4
Rafter KC was started by Casey Bear — a Cree rodeo cowboy from Chacachas First Nation who spent his early years in the bareback rigging and his working years teaching steel to do exactly what he wanted it to.
Casey grew up on the Chacachas side of Ochapowace Nation, east of Whitewood, Saskatchewan — Treaty 4 country. Cattle work, horse work and the rodeo arena weren’t hobbies. They were the calendar. By 17 he was the Saskatchewan High School Rodeo Association SR Bareback Champion and had ridden at the Calgary Stampede in the Novice Bareback. Three generations of the Bear family had already earned their place in Indigenous rodeo before him.
Welding came the way it does for a lot of cowboys — a broken chute that nobody else could fix on a Sunday, a panel that wouldn’t hold a bull, a hitch ripped clean off a stock trailer in -30. He learned the trade the same way he learned to ride: serious time on the ground, under instruction from people who didn’t have patience for shortcuts.
Years later, with formal welding tickets, thousands of hours of shop and field work behind him, and a good idea of exactly where most off-the-shelf cattle equipment fails, Casey opened Rafter KC. The brand is the family rafter. The KC is his initials. Both belong on something built to last.
We spec heavier tube and plate than the catalog calls for. The price difference is small. The life difference is decades.
Stack-of-dimes beads, full penetration where it matters, no skip-welds hidden under paint. If we can see it, you can see it.
Round corners. No pinch points. Quiet latches. Cattle handle better when the equipment was designed by someone who’s spent a day inside it.
If we quote a date, we hit it. If we miss it, we tell you the day we know — not the day it’s due.
Mild & HSLA steel, 304 / 316 stainless, aluminum, cast repair.
Plasma cutting, ironworker, hydraulic press, tube notching, bandsaw.
Sandblast, etch, prime and powder coat — built to live outside.
Self-contained mobile setup for ranch, farm and oilfield-adjacent repair.
Rafter KC sits on Treaty 4 territory and serves the ranching, farming and Indigenous communities across southeast Saskatchewan. The Bear family has been part of Saskatchewan rodeo for three generations — the same patience, attention and respect for the animal show up in every weld that leaves the shop.
Concept sketch, repair photo, full set of drawings — we’ll quote whatever you’ve got.