HIGH LEVEL, Alta. – When Elaine and Eugene Dextrase made the trek to this northwestern Alberta community in the 1970s, they followed some well-trodden footsteps.
Like homesteaders before them, they were looking for land that was affordable, and they traveled as far as they needed to find a place that would allow them to farm.
“To try and start farming somewhere else, it would have been prohibitive,” said Eugene, who worked as a high school principal in nearby Fort Vermilion while they cleared a homestead out of the bush.
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“It’s difficult, but it’s possible. It’s also a challenge.”
There were only 250 acres of land cleared when they moved onto the farm in 1973. They lived in a tent with two small children and a baby.
The couple now farms 1,800 acres and lives in a modern, energy-efficient home.
Dextrase isn’t stuck into the homestead-era mentality. He was one of the first producers in Alberta to use aeration to dry grain, adopted zero till early, grew seed potatoes, Klages barley, and more than a dozen different kinds of grass, pulse and cereal crops on the farm 750 kilometres north of Edmonton.
“We did an awful lot of experimentation,” said Eugene.
For five years they grew seed potatoes in an area where no one had thought of the idea before. Farming on a shoestring budget, they made an arrangement with the province, which provided elite seed potatoes. In exchange, Dextrase agree to sell back the potatoes if needed to ensure a supply of disease-free seed for the province.
It was during this time, when they had to keep the potatoes cool, they learned of the benefits of aeration. They later transferred the knowledge to grain.
One fall they filled a granary with soggy 30 percent moisture grain and all winter they blew air through it with a furnace fan, powered by a quarter horsepower motor. The next year the grain tested almost dry.
“It was soaking wet when we put it in and when we finally sold it, it was testing 15 to 16 percent moisture.”
He still uses aeration to remove excess moisture from the grain.
Dextrase was one of the first farmers to grow Klages barley, the first two-row barley registered in Canada. The Idaho-bred grain was registered in Canada in 1977 and grown under Canadian Wheat Board contracts for four years before it was fully registered.
When wheat board officials came to his farm to inspect the barley for identity preservation and yield estimates, they said it was the best Klages barley crop in Western Canada.
“It made me feel good we got something going.”
Harrington has since taken over the two-row malting barley market, but Klages was the first barley to fill the export market.
Not long after, Dextrase saw the potential of zero tillage. He was convinced by the science, but disappointed by the equipment.
“It all made sense. I would have got into it sooner, but there wasn’t a proper drill that satisfied me,” said Dextrase, who bought a Conserva Pak drill in 1991 and immediately sold the rest of his seed and tillage equipment.
When Dextrase first started farming he was a director with Unifarm, Alberta’s umbrella farm organization. For the past decade canola has occupied most of his time.
He was involved with the Alberta Canola Producers Association for eight years. It even extended his directorship to allow him to be president of the Canadian Canola Growers Association.
Dextrase said when he became president, the national association was a “pretty loose organization.” While the program that looked after the canola, rye and flax cash advances was efficient, it had limited involvement in national and international canola issues.
Under his leadership the organization developed bylaws and established policy and guidelines. When the paperwork and the staff were in place, he moved on.
At the same time, he was an executive member of the Canola Council of Canada where he spent hours on the phone hammering out international trade issues.
Under his leadership, the canola industry lobbied to remove Lindane as a flea beetle treatment in canola because of health concerns for farmers using the product. He worked closely with Health Canada, the American Environmental Protection Agency and the chemical companies for months as they negotiated a deal.
“That wasn’t easy. We had to have farmers on our side. We stood firm and kept excellent communication.”
The volunteer spirit surrounds the family. When their children were young, Eugene and Elaine were involved in many local youth groups. Elaine still teaches ballet four hours a day in High Level. The children come home to help with harvest.
Before Eugene became involved with the canola industry, he was executive director of the Northwestern Regional Economic Development Council. He organized the delivery of natural gas to the area and sat on a committee to recruit and retain medical professionals. He learned that much of keeping doctors is making them feel welcome.
“It’s as simple as taking these people out for supper or a drive on a combine,” he said.
In small communities there are limited choices, so residents become more involved.
“You create your own activities, you become interdependent on each other and have more support groups because of it.
“If you don’t feel a part of it, you don’t feel a need to get in there and help it become better.”
