For the next year, this column will mark The Western Producer’s 100th anniversary by taking a deep dive every week into a past issue of the paper.
I wrote in this column earlier in the year about an import duty that the United States had imposed on Canadian hogs. In the June 16, 2005, issue, it was wheat’s turn to make the news.
The U.S. International Trade Commission had imposed a 14.15 percent duty on Canadian hard red spring wheat in 2003, but the Western Producer reported that a North American Free Trade Agreement binational trade panel had ordered the commission to reconsider.
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It castigated the commission for ignoring the fact that average farm wheat prices in the U.S. were based on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange and that Canadian imports didn’t affect MGE prices.
Canadian Wheat Board president Adrian Measner was hopeful that the duty would soon be lifted.
“Our arguments are so compelling and so strong that we think as they go through those questions, the answer will be quite clear to them.”
BSE was still in the news with a story about a second infected cow being found in the U.S. Little more was known than that.
This issue also included an instalment by reporter Mary MacArthur’s coverage of Ben Gray’s attempt to travel around the world by boat, starting in landlocked Dunvegan, Alta., on the Peace River on May 22, 2005.
The former bison rancher was eventually successful, arriving in Vancouver on Aug. 12, 2006, but reaching the high seas proved difficult.
When Mary caught up to them in early June 2005, the crew was still struggling to get the 57 foot Idlewood to salt water.
They had been forced to stop in Fort Chipewayan for repairs after the boat’s wheels were damaged when it was stuck in shallow water on the river’s Boyer Rapids.
The wheels were needed to portage around rapids and shallow water and would be removed once past Pelican Rapids near the Northwest Territories border.
Gray and company eventually reached the Arctic Ocean and then proceeded on their year-long circumnavigation of the globe.
