ENTERPRISE, Ore. — For more than 100 years the McClaran family has run cattle from the depths of Hells Canyon to the high country of northeastern Oregon.

Sisters Jill, Beth and Maggie McClaran run 1,000 mother cows on private and public land. Jill McClaran said her great grandparents Joe and Loreen relocated from Lewiston, Idaho, to Wallowa County in 1919.

Some things haven’t changed much since McClaran’s great grandparents and grandparents ran cattle in Hells Canyon. None of the ranch houses in the canyons have electricity, television or internet, and the lights, stove and refrigerators run on propane. Like their grandfather and great uncle, the sisters were homeschooled part of the year.

“From Christmas break to spring break we were homeschooled in the canyon. We went to Joseph School the rest of the time,” Jill McClaran said.

Having a place in the Wallowa Valley, she said, afforded her opportunities like belonging to a horse 4-H club and serving on the 4-H court. That’s where her quest for royalty ended, against the urgings of her grandfather to try out for the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo Court.

“Why would I want to be a queen when I could be a cowgirl?” Jill McClaran asked.

Mostly, the sisters wanted to go to work and were in the saddle by the time they were three or four.

“We felt the obligation, from a young age, to help with the animals,” Jill McClaran said.

Today the division of duties among the sisters is somewhat defined. Beth McClaran manages the relationships with the summer and private ground leases and Maggie McClaran oversees grazing in the canyons from Nov. 1 to May 15.

“I play a supporting role — buying groceries for the ranch, caring for calves in the valley during the winter and overseeing irrigation in the summer,” Jill McClaran said.

She said her mom, Vicki, handles the bookkeeping and her father, Scott, does all the worrying.

“He was really worried about the drought this summer,” Jill McClaran said.

Running a successful business for 100 years means learning to adapt to government regulations, weather conditions and predators. In 2013, Jill McClaran said, wolves started showing up in their pastures.

“Our cattle adapted to the wolves,” Jill McClaran said. “They don’t run, but they also don’t spread out as much.”

By now the Angus-Hereford cross cattle have spent their entire lives around wolves so their presence isn’t as traumatizing as it was at first, Jill McClaran said.

A successful ranch also adapts to fluctuating markets and trends.

In 1993, the family was part of the second wave of ranches that joined Country Natural Beef, a collaborative that doesn’t allow cattle to be treated with antibiotics, requires third-party inspections, attendance at annual meetings and in-store demonstrations.

“They want us to be involved at the retail level so we can tell our story,” Jill McClaran said.

McClaran said the family has stayed with Country Natural Beef for so long because of the membership and the networking.

“There are a lot of progressive thinkers,” she said. “The program has evolved as the market has evolved.”

A few years ago, Jill McClaran spread her wings from ranch life and bought a boutique, Simply Sandy’s, on Joseph’s Main Street.

“I like the balance between retail and the ranch, and the independence,” she said.