The lived experience
of working the land.
I was raised on a small farm in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, back in the days when most farms were small. I can remember my mother cooking for the construction crew when we got the electricity in, and how brilliantly lit the house was the first night we had power. I guess that kind of dates me. I was 14 when Dad sold out and moved us, house and all, to the outskirts of town. That winter we had indoor plumbing; pure luxury, though not as stimulating as a dash to the outhouse when it’s 40 below.
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I did a hitch in the Canadian Army and returned to civilian life in Calgary, Alberta where I
then drove taxi for a while, during which time I found the lady who has shared my life for
the last 36 years.
After Bev and I pooled our resources we moved to south-astern British Columbia where I
drove ore truck in a surface mine until a strike outlasted our finances. We moved back to
Alberta, to Lethbridge, where Bev and I both worked briefly for a farm equipment
manufacturer before I started with United Grain Growers in Fort MacLeod, and Bev left the
workforce to raise a family. I worked there for three years then took a manager’s position
in Cluny, a small village east of Calgary.
Occasionally Bev and I brought out our dreams of going farming and worked them over.
The price of land was an insurmountable obstacle until, in the fall of 1987, a custom
combiner told us that land was affordable in the Peace River Region of northern Alberta.
We moved north in the summer of ’88.
We’re still on the farm though most of our lofty dreams have fallen by the wayside, victims
of reality. Our three children, all mule stubborn, have long since left the nest for lives of
their own. To supplement farm income and Bev’s as a school bus driver, I drove truck in
western Canada, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories until medical problems forced
me off the road.