Farmers near Elie, Man., where Armand LeSann grew up, received sympathy from the townsfolk when crops failed or prices were poor.
But when he moved 600 kilometres north to The Pas in 1961, he quickly learned he wasn’t in the Red River Valley anymore.
“Out here, still today, they couldn’t care less,” said LeSann.
It’s a town where lumber, pulp and paper provide jobs for many of the 7,000 residents, and some would rather have seen land left for wildlife habitat rather than turned under and farmed.
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It’s a place where the agricultural fair cowers in the shadow of an annual world championship dogsled race and a King Trapper contest where men test their mettle climbing poles, packing canoes, skinning muskrats and calling moose and goose.
“People know there’s farming west of The Pas, and that’s about all they know,” said farmer Fred Madrigga. “We live in two different worlds.”
Aside from Manitoba Pool and bulk fuel dealers, there are no local businesses catering to the small farm community.
But some farmers depend on the pulp mill to make ends meet, and work there part- or full-time.
“It’s gone the same way as elsewhere,” said LeSann. “There has been more and more amalgamation, and some of the smaller units are run by people who have other jobs as well.”
Worries about the possibilities of land claims from a strong aboriginal community are at the back of some farmers’ minds.
Opaskwayak Cree Nation owns almost 15,000 acres of land, including some farmland, in the region. But farmer Rod Berezowecki thinks there’s nothing to worry about.
He has spent time with band leaders in his capacity as a rural municipality councillor.
“They want to work with the people here,” he said. “They’re a very classy operation.”
The band owns the town’s mall and several stores inside it, a new community centre, and a year-old, $8 million hotel and conference centre.
It also bought a Junior A hockey franchise last year, which Berezowecki said has pulled the community closer together.
Farming above the 53rd parallel
- About 130,000 acres of river delta were diked and drained starting in the 1950s. About 80,000 of these have been cleared and cropped.
- The region has an average of 115 frost-free days.
- About 80 farmers hold Canadian Wheat Board
permit books; half of this group deliver most of the
elevator’s grain.
- Farmers sell about 5,000 head of cattle a year to markets south and west.
- During the 1961 drought, cattle farmers hauled more than one
million square bales to southern Manitoba.
- The going price for land is $200 to $300 per acre.
