Shilliday is a Manitoba author who recently completed a biography of Seager Wheeler entitled Canada’s Wheat King: The Life and Times of Seager Wheeler.
We drove across the majestic June loneliness of southern Saskatchewan rangeland, surprised by the unexpected appearance of sweeping, deep valleys.
Here was a grandeur of nature and human industry we hadn’t known about – wind turbines hilltop-on-hilltop into the distance, dwarfing a mélange of grain terminals, oil “grasshoppers” and herds of steaks on the hoof – a province on the move.
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Contentment came from the realization that I, too, was contributing a small bit to revealing Saskatchewan’s greatness: the story of the man who put Saskatchewan on the international map. The University of Regina had just published my biography of pioneer wheat developer, Seager Wheeler.
No one can challenge the claim of western Canadians that they have always grown the world’s best wheat. Records of the 54 world championship competitions held from 1911 to 1968 show that Canadian exhibitors won the top title 49 times, western Canadian exhibitors 48 times.
A 1933 article in The Western Producer stated: “…at the International Grain and Hay Show in Chicago a huge map of the United States and Canada hangs on the wall of the grain show building and as soon as a championship is decided, a gold crown is placed in the state or province from which the exhibit comes. The grower thus becomes a Wheat King, Oat King, Corn King, etc. The province of Saskatchewan can boast many such Kings…”
A few years ago, my wife Beth and I were headed up Highway 11 north of Saskatoon to visit the historic battleground at Batoche. We were approaching a little town named Rosthern when Beth raised her eyes from a brochure and said, “I’d like to see Seager Wheeler’s farm.”
She could have said she’d like to see Old Macdonald’s farm and been no less baffling to me. Seager Wheeler, she explained, had been an important farmer in pioneer times and his historic farm was nearby and sounded interesting.
I had learned that what caught Beth’s interest was always worth the time invested, and wheeled east toward what would become an absorbing pursuit – writing the first biography of this great Canadian.
After a couple of years of research and interviews, we stood near the left bank of the South Saskatchewan River, a few miles northeast of Saskatoon, and felt like pilgrims. Here was the site of the original homestead young Seager Wheeler and his mother had worked more than a century earlier. I had traced through his entire, dedicated life and now, to be in this place, was an emotional experience.
The old site by the river had been difficult to find. The closest farmer’s helpful instructions had pointed us across wide fields of autumn stubble that scraped disturbingly underneath the car.
Yet finally, there were the long stands of Manitoba maple, offspring of those he planted so long ago, and the sloping riverbank he terraced for vegetable gardens and climbed up and down, summer and winter, to cross the river by boat or by trudging across the ice, sometimes risking his life.
Wheeler was North America’s most celebrated wheat developer, whose varieties in the 1920s made up 40 percent of the world’s wheat exports.
Queen’s University presented pioneer seed grower Wheeler with an honorary degree in 1920, and McGill University collected his scientific publications. One of his wheat varieties, Red Bobs, was responsible for opening up the Peace River district of Alberta to successful grain farming.
His most publicized accomplishment was being crowned World Wheat King an unsurpassed five times, from 1911 to 1918. The interest engendered by his triumphs was an acknowledged factor in Canada’s success in luring immigrant farmers to Canada’s West.
The federal government has proclaimed him a historic person. His farm has been designated a national historic site. Wheeler played a major part in transforming the empty Canadian West into a prosperous region. More than 80 percent of Canada’s wheat production – and much of that in the American Midwest – had been grown from his hardy strains.
It has been written that the revolution that turned the semi-arid Canadian Prairies into viable farmland had been accomplished through the “application of scientific methodologies to the art of farming.” Wheeler was one of the leaders of this revolution.
History has underestimated Wheeler’s contribution to the success of the famed Marquis wheat. Glory was heaped on Dr. Charles Saunders as the “father” of Marquis, almost ignoring Wheeler’s crucial role in stabilizing it as Marquis 10B.
His improved strain was wildly popular and became the foundation stock of the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association.
This June drive across the bottom of Saskatchewan was serendipitous. We had slept in Eastend, in the Cypress Hills, the former home of writer Wallace Stegner, and ate lunch at the Red Coat Booksellers and Cappuccino Bar. I checked the rare book section, and there was the book Wheeler published in 1919, Seager Wheeler’s Book: Profitable Grain Farming.
I forked over $70, and it now graces my bookshelf, alongside the Wheeler biography.
