It’s been a long time since the once-iconic wheat pool logos were a fixture on the sides of grain elevators across the Prairies.
They first started disappearing in 1998 when Alberta Wheat Pool and Manitoba Pool Elevators merged to form Agricore Cooperative Ltd.
The logo was finally gone for good in 2007 when Saskatchewan Wheat Pool bought Agricore United, which itself was a merger between Agricore and United Wheat Growers. With that acquisition, Sask Pool changed its name to Viterra and the logo retired.
As a result, almost a generation has passed since the pool logo slipped out of sight.
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This is why I was a little surprised recently to see a young woman I know sporting a sweatshirt with the bright yellow and red pool logo printed on the front.
In her early 30s and growing up in the city, she doesn’t have a strong affinity to the old farmer-owned grain co-operative system.
However, she now works in agriculture and sees the pool logo as a symbol of the industry’s long and storied history on the Prairies.
It’s also turned out to be a pretty good conversation starter for when she’s thrown into gatherings with rural folks of a certain vintage, which happens to her occasionally.
She says that she walks into one of these get-togethers wearing her pool sweatshirt and the ice is immediately broken.
Her new acquaintances are quickly drawn to the logo, wanting to know where she got the shirt and why she wears it.
The conversations inevitably move on to her career in agriculture, which then brings more questions, such as, “how did a city girl end up working in wheat research.”
By the time the questions have been asked and answered, the generation gap has been bridged and new friendships forged.
The pools may be long gone, but their power continues to work its magic.
