ST. LOUIS, Sask. – The riverside is a speckled quilt, awash in the colours of fall.
Henry Begrand takes it all in from his farm yard a short drive from the St. Laurent ferry in north-central Saskatchewan.
Now in the midst of his 62nd consecutive harvest, the farmer yearns to be back in the cab of a canary yellow combine bringing in the last 10 percent of his family farm’s crop.
“It’s just part of me, I just look forward to doing it,” he said. “The minute we park the combine, I am bored.”
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Henry combined 24 straight days, but as of Sept. 29, had been stopped for 15 days due to wet weather.
Last year’s crop was feed grade but this year’s harvest has better quality with lower yields.
Leaning against his cane to inspect the combine, the 81-year-old points out a bent tin bracket rubbing against a chain to his son Roger Begrand.
Henry is plagued by an aging arthritic leg that requires him to use a walker or cane on the ground, but manages to pull himself up the five deep steps of the combine ladder “with sheer grit, ” said Roger’s wife Diane. He uses hand controls in his pick-up truck to help him drive.
Diane called her father-in-law a positive person who displays total passion for harvesting.
“There’s nothing he loves more,” she said.
Henry said all of his years threshing have been spent behind the wheel of self-propelled combines, the first being a 1944 21 Massey Harris with a 14 foot header.
He’s been loyal to John Deere for years, but this year he’s driving a New Holland.
His grandson François, an agricultural student, has shown him the bells and whistles of the high tech machine that includes settings for wind direction, rotors and sieves and a computerized information centre to alert the operator of problems.
But Henry prefers to keep it simple, focusing on more basic operations.
New machinery has advantages, he said, but farmers have to pay more for it.
The hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on combines are a far cry from the days of threshing crews, when workers were paid $1 a day in his father’s custom threshing business. Now one person operating a combine can do the work that 10 men once did, Henry said.
When not farming, he is an avid reader and joins his friends daily in St. Louis for coffee.
Henry, a father of one son and two daughters, lost his first wife to myotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1980 and remarried in 1984. Today he lives alone in a sprawling ranch home overlooking a twist in the South Saskatchewan River.
Roger’s family lives in the next yard. A retired farm worker and his wife who live on the property bring Henry supper each night and help with housekeeping chores.
“I wouldn’t raise a family anywhere else,” said Henry of his farm life.
He was active in numerous organizations, including the local school board, 4-H, Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute and the Canadian Charolais Association.
There were ups and downs in farming, including the poor prices of recent years, but generally it provided a comfortable lifestyle.
The Begrand farm always operated with hired help, many of whom made long careers here. The cattle are gone but Roger continues to operate a 100-head swine finishing barn in addition to growing barley, canola and wheat.
Few services remain in nearby Hoey, where Henry grew up.
He recalled its boom years, with a host of businesses to service the farming community. His father, Henry Sr., operated a fuel company, implement dealership and garage while Henry made deliveries in a Model A Ford.
Henry Sr. was a French-speaking Belgian who homesteaded the farm in 1896.
Active in public service, he served on the school board, local council and as MLA.
Henry said the French language linked the family to the community, settled
by a large population of Métis.
The French would also be a great benefit to him in his travels around the world promoting Charolais.
His life story is played out in picture frames lining the walls and shelves of his home: Henry leaning on a good friend; an aerial view of the farm yard; family wedding shots and a grand champion Charolais bull from the 1986 Canadian Western Agribition.
Looking back, he recalled the first years farming here in the 1940s as lonely ones. Travel was often restricted due to a lack of winter roads.
He was preparing for university and war service beckoned when he reluctantly turned to farming on his father’s advice.
Today he has no regrets about that career choice.
“Looking back, it was a blessing in disguise,” he said.
