Shaun Newman Podcast - #1095 - Henry Seidlitz Sr.

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Henry Seidlitz Sr. is a third-generation farmer in Saskatchewan. He served as chairman of the Buffalo Plains School Division for more than a decade during the 1980s and 1990s. At a time when the provincial government was closing small rural schools, he played a key role in expanding the division by building new elementary schools in Regina Beach, Pilot Butte, White City, and Edenwold. In the early 2000s, he was awarded the TESSA Award for his outstanding contributions with land stewardship.Cornerstone Forum 26’https://shaunnewmanpodcast.substack.com/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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You're joining the show. Make sure to share it with, Brent. Make sure to subscribe. Yeah, do all the things, okay? Now, let's get on to that tale of the tape. Today's guest is a third generation farmer in Saskatchewan. I'm talking about Henry Sidelitz, senior. So buckle up.

Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Henry Sidlitz. I'm going to call you a senior, but that's because your son's been on and just appreciate you, let me come sit with you. Now, for the audience, they wouldn't know this, but we just toured a good chunk of your farm

and got to see a whole, well, you got a beautiful spot here, one, you know, we're close to Regina Beach for the audience that knows Jamie Sinclair and we're awfully close to that. The little arm river runs into Last Mountain Lake. It's a major feature. Yeah. Well, to the audience. It's Henry.

Just tell them a bit about yourself. A little bit of your back story. You can go back to certainly how many generations your family's been sitting on this plot of dirt. But, you know, if you want to walk us through it. The sidelets have a history that the oldest boy has been named Henry. And so I'm Henry the 4th. My son is Henry the 5th. My grandson's Henry the 6th.

And we're sort of wondering what Henry the 8th is going to look like someday. but that's a bit of something to chuckle at. My grandfather came here when he was 14 years old. He worked for his uncle for three years to pay off his passage, started working in the area on the accumulating land, married a lady from the north side of the lake from the Silton area, and started raising a family. When you say he paid off his passage coming across,

any idea what passage across cost? No. But three years? in he was still paying it off. It took him three years to pay it off. Yeah. So I don't know, $400, $100 a year. That's just a guess. I don't know. It's a question I never asked my dad, and I don't know if my dad knew either, but that's the story he always told me. Then he started working for people in the area and accumulated some land of his own and eventually ended up going back to where his uncle was farming and he bought that land because his cousin at the time

split up with his wife and she got the farm and he got his freedom to go and live in the Richardson area of Saskatchew, just east of Regina. It became quite successful three times in his lifetime, made small fortunes and lost them. That's part of life as a farmer in Saskatchewan too. times were tough some years in the 30s. The 80s of my mind were another 10 years that was not nice farming. 88 was the worst year I had a friend.

You mentioned 88 to me multiple times today. So walk me through 1988 because by all accounts of listening today, 88 sounds like it was the worst year. We always needed enough roughage and hay to feed cattle because I had about, I would say 75, 80, had a cows at that time. There was no hay to be cut. So we see that the farm is normal. We sprayed the weeds, but guess what happened? We got a bit of a shower, and the weeds all came back. That's all I

had for feed that year. And because I had crop insurance, you had to go out and harvest your crop. So I cut all the low spots when there was nothing growing but weeds, and that was my feed for my cattle. Then I went and did all the hills afterwards for four bushels and ink. which was a crop failure at that time. I should have cut the whole field to start with, and I would have had some good feed with some grain in it. But because of crop insurance regulations and rules, you had to put that through a combine.

Well, I wore my machine out by four bushels an acre, which was four times what I put into the ground. Bushal and a peck, usually was what we seeded at that time for your seed, so a little over a bushel. and we got four times of that back on the whole field. Well, of course, we didn't do the whole field. It was just a little bit on this hill and that hill. It wasn't fun.

Kettleston, I think I mentioned that little hometown that my dad first hauled grain to, and I did as a kid too. There was a power pole on the west side of the hall, and it sparked, arced onto the ground, and it burnt everything in the town except for one building east of that power pole. And that particular building

had stucco right to the ground or it would have went up on fire too, but it didn't get hot enough to burn the building inside the stucco. It was just, if you talk to anybody in this area, particularly in Saskatchewan in general,

in my mind, the 80s were probably as dry as the 30s were, but we had different farming equipment. And there was one major difference. We all had a power pole on the power bill that we had to pay. They didn't have that in the 30s. Farmers did,

quite well by growing a garden and a little bit of relief and things like that during the 30s, but they always talk about the 30s and the dust bowl that we have and the grasshoppers. Well, in my mind, the 80s were just as bad and I always remember 88 because I felt that was the worst year I ever had farming.

Well, you even told me you broke down and watered your trees in 88. That's correct. By that time, I had built a new house here and seeded about 1,700 trees around the yard, and I figured trees should be able to manage themselves, but it was so dry in the 80s, we had quite a number. I think we had about 500 evergreens, and they get rid of moisture all winter long, and so they need a good drink. If you do any reading on trees, an evergreen tree needs a good drink of water to

take it through the winter. And so I went with a old gravel truck I had in a water tank and put about five gallons of water on top of every tree that I had on the farm and the shelter belt. obviously you had a good water supply you were telling me you showed me where where the water well is now and how early in the you know in the family lineage i guess they couldn't get good water here right i think the one story you were telling the day you were like the water we had you couldn't make it from the barn to the house without having to go to the can so that's right um you know to find a good water well where where it's it's just pouring in even in the driest times you had water to water trees and everything else that you could get it to.

The fellow that dug our well said he'd only seen one or two in his lifetime with that amount of water in him. And he said, I can't really test it, but I'm thinking it's coming in between 50 and 60 gallons a minute. I have a well right beside this house which can't use, but it comes in a gallon and a quarter, and it was enough to keep one house and a family going, but you didn't drink the water. We hauled our drinking water.

And when you talk to people in Saskatchew, most people have water bottles now. They get their water from some place that is reverse osmosis or whatever. When our water changed in the high water years in 2014, 2015, I put a reverse osmosis even on our well because our water well quality changed. Up till then, it was always tested and safe for babies, every report that we got. But after that, there was a couple of minerals and stuff again that had got into it. And I'm thinking it's just natural runoff.

from going underneath farmland. And what it's picking up going underneath farmland? Is that what you mean? Yeah. We also had that particular year, as I told you, beaver dams that had built the dam above the well. And I think some water from that had flowed back into the well, which changed the quality a little bit.

But there's water running out of the ground there 24-7, and I'm assuming it's washing itself clean all the time. We can't pump it dry. It will hardly take it down. a couple of inches. If we put two pumps in, we can draw it down a couple of feet, but it pours in so you think you had a deluge and you were in a hailstorm or something. It just roars coming back into that well. 34 feet deep, and there's 17 feet of water, and the level hasn't really changed in all

the years when we go and test it. We have to replace the pump once in a while we have some electrical issues, but things we take for granted. well, I mean, most farmers don't run into that, right? They have... They're either on a pipeline or they have a well that's good enough for what they do. Yeah, good enough for, you know, you think. But I remember as a kid, the cattle bowls being on the same line to the house and them drinking it dry multiple times, right? And different stories like that, I guess, from different farmers from our area. And so to have a, you know, a well that just won't be emptied. That's, you know, a perk for sure. I mean, but you guys, you know,

you were telling me the story. We're driving on this, well, I thought it was a road, but you were telling me, you know, back in the day when you put the line into that well, you know, the water table was so high, you actually plowed a trail to get the water lines so you could sink it into something. I hope I'm explaining that the right way, folks. East of our place, there's a big ravine. And every, I don't know, 10 years or so, it'll be full of water. And the particular year, and it was after that bad winter we had in 73,

74, there was water all over the place. And so when I was trenching after that for two or three years, that ravine was full of water. So we pushed dirt out, made a road across, and then trenched in the road to put the water line

across that ravine. In the dry years then, and it would have been oh, sometime in the 80s. We went back and I put it north of the road back into the bottom of that ravine. And a strange thing happened was digging, and about four or five feet down out of the side of the trench, a mole fell out, fell into the trench.

So he was looking for water too at that particular time. And the 80s were 10 predominantly dry years that we went through. That's funny because I remember as a kid in the 90s it being dry, but it was probably just the years following, the 80s where it was still, you know, like every, because like all of our, our, um, sluos and everything, you could just walk across them all. I remember dead seagulls like everywhere when we were fencing because it was just so bad. And so I just, my brain always goes to the 90s being dry, but it was the carryover probably from 10, 10 dry years in the 80s. You drive around now

and you see the slu's here and there. Yeah. Our farming habits have changed and we're seating everything corner to corner, which uses a lot of that moisture up. But some years, it rained so hard, and it's running someplace, and it accumulates in sloughs. So in the 80s, per se, there was 10 predominantly very dry years, and all those sluze dried up. There was nothing. So farmers, they say, ah, I'm going to make some money, and they go and they break up

those sluze. And then a few years later, it rains again, and fills them all up again. So it's a cycle that farmers go through. they try well they'll they use water cannons now in the spring they'll go and they'll pump all that water out onto the hills so they can see those sluos and then lo and behold so you think they're just like what are you guys doing like you don't understand the power of nature you know you you've mentioned multiple times today if you just pay attention nature will show you and tell you things it will ultimately tell you how strong it is and you can't fight nature by any means but we keep trying and sometimes it's in vain and and sometimes we get a crop or two.

Got a neighbor that I used to fish with west of here. And he remembers cutting hay in the bottom of a very big slew in the 30s. And guess what? One spring it, they had lots of snow in the 30s too. He said they lost all their equipment because they forgot to take it out in the fall. And it got flooded into it. Oh, man, that would be a tough mistake. Well, equipment wasn't a big thing at that time.

Fair enough. Fair enough. But you think of all the, the houses that are built in floodplains now and everything else. And it's just like you don't understand like these are big cycles. And eventually it's going to come back. I shouldn't, I don't know how to point the finger at, but when you came out from Regina,

if you came that way, number 11 highway on the top of number 11 north of Lumsden, they got track hose in there and they're scratching away on a slew. And then they got a cat and they're leveling all out. all out. So somebody's building some lakefront property for somebody who knows, maybe they feel it's an investment. But guess what? There's no farms or buildings in there right now. Because it is a slew and they can't change it. It's eventually going to come back and bite them. I'm curious, you know, like today, you know, probably all through your life, it's changed different things. Farmers would probably know the climate is always changing, but a big scare for the world is

climate change, right? Yes. We're going to melt ourselves to death or, you know, like I, if you watch the weather channel from time to time, we're in a heat vortex and different things like that. What are your thoughts on climate change? Well, we've had ice ages before, too. And so the world lives in cycles. I would say it's about every 50 years.

I'm not sure, but you look at the span of 10 years and the 30s, it was dry. So many years later, in the span of the 80s, it was 10 years that was dry again. So I think we go through cycles all the time. And regards to it being hotter and all the time, maybe we're going to get froze out sometime and we'll have a nice age again. I probably won't be around to say, ha, ha, I told you so, but we're talking long cycles here for the earth. Yeah, I would agree.

You know, certainly around our area, you can see that, just down the farm, you're more dialed into the cycles that are happening, right? the amount of precipitation you get. I mean, if I called my parents right now, they tell me to the exact point how many inches of rain they've got or, you know, the runoff and everything else. They can, you know, farmers are constantly paying attention

to nature and what's going on on their land because it either provides for their crops or their animals. Their livelihood, exactly. In my mind, a lot of farmers will say I'm not a gambler. They're the biggest gamblers going because they're always betting on the weather. that they're going to get enough moisture to grow that crop that they put in the ground. And things are always better next year.

They remember a lot of bad things from the past, but always going to be better next year. That's our optimism for us. You mentioned, like, there's multiple times through today where you got going on, and I think it was Henry that brought it up, I think it was Jamie that brought it up, but you got involved in school boards, and were a member for multiple terms, memory serves me correct. That's correct. How did you get involved in a school board just for starters? And then maybe walk me through opening up all these different small town schools. But what was it back then that you're like, you know what? I want to get involved on a school board. I was asked to

run. And maybe it was a deficiency in the previous board member that I replaced who seemed to be interested in more so what was happening in Moose Jaw than what was happening at Lumsden or our high school area. Our division, school division, actually ended up being the last school division that was formed in the larger school unit act. And so we got what everybody else didn't want, to put it bluntly. So if you look at the vagina, the donut around vagina, there's Pilot Butte, it's White City. there's a small bedroom communities that were growing. And Lumsden and Balgone were the two high schools, and all the elementary schools around that area fed into those schools.

And if there wasn't enough room in those schools, they always had a release valve. They would send kids to the city of Regina. They closed out, I think, 104, it was over 100 little schools that they closed, one room, two-room schools, and Regina Beach was one of them, and my school, just a mile and a quarter up the road here, there was 10 kids there last year that I was in that school.

And in 1964, we were joined into the Larger School Unit Act, and was Regina School Unit 21. And I went to those schools and then ended up riding a bus down to Lumson for High School. So I grew up into an era where young kids were tried to be housed in their home communities, and you went out to the bigger centers to get high school where there would be more numbers, more teachers, to provide better programming. and more options for kids and their education.

So that's sort of something that I grew up in and up out of, and then when I was asked to be a school board member, there was a couple of things that happened. It was early entrance age was an issue and the building of the White City School. And White City at the time was big enough to have a school for 100, I'll say 150. I think it was 148 or just around 150 kids.

That school was full the day it was opened, and it's never turned back. They put portables on, and it's probably double that size now. In fact, White City has two elementary schools in it. They still go to Belgone for high school. One of the last issues I faced on the board was to build a high school in the east side of vagina. And I was still of the mind that hierarchy high school had more program offerings for kids, and it made sense to bus than when they were older. young kids, there's a attention span.

You go much more in an hour on a bus. It's not very fun. You don't want young kids driving for two hours on a bus to get to a school. So I developed the idea or grew up with the idea that elementary kids should be taught in their home school environment. And then once you came a high school age, that it didn't hurt to be on the bus for a little bit for better programming offerings and things like that. So if I understand this correctly, though, you could ask you. run on the board and at that time regina is centralizing school they're essentially the idea is let's cancel all the little one room school houses of 10 kids here and you know eight over there and oh that's a big one

it's got 14 and let's bring them into one spot that way we can have all the teachers here we can give them all the offering school or you know class sizes will balloon to is it 20 is it 25 kids you know you get the point and you get on being a board member And then you reverse the flow of that, correct? Like you actually start to open up schools back out in the countryside again. Where it made sense to build a school. Sure. Regina Beach, as an example, was a summer residence.

Most people that lived there, other than a few locals, they were just cottages. They weren't interested in a school. They came out in the summertime when the kids got out of school in Regina. So they closed the Regina Beach school down because it got below 30 kids or whatever the number was at the time. By the time I came along on the board, Regina Beach, people were building full-time residences at school and raising families out there.

So there was a need for a school again. I think that was a K-to-6 school for probably 120 students. So you follow the norm in the province. Even in Regina, they build a core school, and they put portables on as the area grows. And then when it gets to the point where it's saturated, and there's no, the families are declining with their children, school children, then they move those portable someplace else.

We built two schools in our school division that were completely portable. Edenwald was one of them, Krono was the other one. They still have a school in Edenwald for about 50, 60 students, which is small, a couple classrooms when you look at a high school in Lumson. There you have a classroom of 30 to 60. kids. But anyway, that school is still and exists. Cronal, their population changed so much that they took all the portables away and there's no more Crono school in their school division because the need isn't there anymore. So things change and you have to adapt to that change. Was it hard to,

I don't know, convince, I'm going to assume the school division. Department of Education. Thank you. Was it hard to convince them that like, hey, we have a need here. It's Regina Beach. There's there's 120 kids, we need to stop sending them on a bus all the way to wherever they were heading, if it was a Regina or elsewhere. It's like, how hard of a battle was that? Or was it, you know, maybe you've got the gift of gab. I mean. Well, I hinted at it a little bit.

It was one of the controversial issues in my second year on a school board is that there was a need to build for 158 or 150 or whatever the number was, students at White city. The Department of Education didn't want to build a school there. So our division took the bull by the horns and borrowed the money by a different route and we built that school because we knew that that community was growing. Since that time that. Wait, so they said no. They actually said no. And instead of just going, oh, yeah, we're hooped, you found a different way. How did you find a different way? We had some entrepreneurs on our school board at the time. One of the was a fellow that owned a bus fleet himself.

I rode on his buses when I went to school. I get to the division office, and lo and behold, this fellow is on the board. And our school division was one of the first of the province that went back from contracting and bought their own buses and bust their own kids rather than contracting all the time. So ideas like that,

that seemed to lend themselves to what we needed. Every penny that we saved was our objective. In busing, we put it back into education. I told you earlier, the most important person in the school room, in my mind was a teacher at the front of it. That's where the kids got the information. The student is important too, but if they didn't have a good teacher to teach them,

they go no place. Sort of makes sense? Yeah, well, I'm just, I just like that they told you no when you found, you're like, well, we're going to do it anyway, so we were just actually looking for a blessing so we could probably get some money.

Instead, we're just going to do it our own way. And you went and fundraised? Is that, or did you have private ownership? No, instead of going through the dementia way, there was different ways of borrowing money that a school division can access. And we used an alternate way than having their approval to do a dementia.

And a dementia really is just a, a government loan that you, as taxpayers, has to pay back. And we found a different route, that's all. So was there a point where the Department of Education, whether it's the first school you do this with or the second, did the conversation eventually get to the point where they're going to do it anyway? So we models just get on board with them? We had, you butt horns with people that are in places of power,

per se and sometimes you don't say sometimes they learn that maybe there is a different way and Saskatchewan I think is noted with people that are that it can't be done that isn't a word that you want to tell them because they're going to show you that they can do it eh so that's part of our pioneer spirit or whatever there's always if there's a will there's a way what's it forgive me what's the award your farm has won the environmental stewardship award

So just for the audience, we take a two-hour side-by-side ride today around it, you know, and I feel like most farmers could do this. I just don't feel like most farmers would have some of the things that are sitting out your backyard. We overlooked one of the most gorgeous, I'll post it on an X for everybody to go take a look at. But we overlooked the lake, and forgive me, what is the lake? lake called? It's called Last Mountain Lake. Last Mountain Lake. On a clear day, you can see there's a hill north of Strasbourg on the other side of the lake. Sure. And it's the end of the little touchwood hills. And that's what the lake is named for. Most of us call it locally here Long Lake, because it goes for 60 or 70 miles. Forever. Yes. You can't see the end of it. You got,

you got the spike, which you can probably rattle off a story on that. That was the first thing we got to. the amount of flowers we saw today was beyond impressive you got the you know you got the old spot where the train bridge used to go across the old trestle which obviously is gone now but you can still make out where it went

I mean the rail bed that goes up along yeah correct it was just I don't know I it was a pretty spectacular spot so when you win the award I'm just like is it just because of what you sit on, or was there specific things they were looking for that you guys have done very well? Farmers have been recognized in the TESA Award for a number of years through the Canadian Cattlemen's Association. Then they have Duxan Limited in the Royal Bank, and I forget there was

a third sponsor there, if I remember correctly, and I don't remember correctly. But anyway, what we were doing on our farm was just something because of our land makeup, the valley, and things like that. So as I explained, we would keep the cattle in our yard in the wintertime. They went to a spring patch pasture. They went through our corrals that we had at the built edge of the valley, processed the calves and the cows, and they went into the valley for the summer. At the end of the summer, they went through the corral again, take the calves off. The cows would go around the stubble field. And then the last thing they would do is end up in the Indian Reserve where we first went. and of course there were springs there

and as long as the water was running out of those springs or the lake hadn't froze over, the cattle had water. The first bad weather that would come and usually it was between Christmas and New Year's. All of a sudden, a few older cows would end up coming home. And I said, aha, the lakes froze over. The old cows, they knew how to walk around the end of the fence, walk home. And I always went and opened up the gates

because the young ones hadn't experienced it yet. And within three days or a week, you'd have a storm. cattle observed nature and they knew when the storm was coming and they had to get home well not only cattle but the oldest ones you go like even in cattle they mature and they start to understand when it's time to go they become the leaders of the pack and we i called it rotational grazing it was just something that we did naturally because of where we moved them some of those cows were waiting at the gate when i went to open it and they said about time and away they would go to the next pasture because they knew where they were going.

Sometimes you'd get a bull that would try to turn the hurt around, and then you almost take a gun and shoot it because he was causing a lot of grief. But the old cows, they knew. Yeah, well, it's one of the, you know, like, tour in your spot, A, it's beautiful. And there's lots of beautiful country out there, but this seemed on a spectacular level at times.

You have to remember we've had a very exceptional... Yes, we have. Wet, early summer. And then normally if you, we did this tour in the 80s, we would have seen pretty bare grass and not a flower to be seen any place. So you happen to hit it on an exceptional year where there's lots of moisture and everything's blooming. There's Saskatoon's out there we found. Yeah. Today they're almost dried up already.

They've been, we're the middle of a lot. Well, and we come around the one point and then there's like, I don't know, was there 40 pelicans sitting there? All just chilling on, sort of. Pelican point, you know, like obviously that's the other side of the lake, but still, there's all the pelicans, right? What is going on today? Everywhere we go, there's just like, it's whether it's wildlife or once again, the flowers were pretty spectacular. I mean, the water looked amazing day. It was a beautiful day, right? Luckily, we had a little wind. I keep referring to the cement pad. That's where my land starts. Every spring, there's a rush of

fish that go up there, right? Well, guess what? When those fish come back, those pelicans, have come back from their journey down south, and they're just catching them by the mouthfuls. And so that is a food source for them. They're not dumb. They're not dumb. No, they are not. You were talking about a story.

I can't remember how young you were, but of taking fish out of the Long Lake and filling a truck full of water so it could go off to the East Coast or West Coast, wherever coast. To the northern states. Chicago. To Chicago.

Walk me through this. Or Detroit. Because it seems like a wild story for a Saskatchewan lake to be delivering fish to Chicago. The little arm has a bay in it. And so fish, buffalo fish, particularly there are rough fish that live in this lake, like to go and sun themselves in the summertime. And so Howard and McLean, I think was the fish company from either Vailport or Craven at the end of the lake. and they would corral these fish every day

and hold them in the pens until they had a tanker full or a truck full. I never loaded them when they put them on ice. The time I helped, we actually put them live into a truck tank that was full of water, and then they hooked a truck onto that and pumped air into it and drove them down, and they had live fish when they got to their market in the northern states,

around Chicago or Detroit or someplace down east. I did that two summers. Two summers you worked every day loading fish into tankers. No, you did it maybe once every three weeks or something. They had the weight until they accumulated enough fish to fill up the tanker. And so they measured them, they didn't count it. So, okay, they accumulated enough fish to fill it up, and then you go out into the bay and what?

you waded in with hip waders on and a dip net and you would catch as much as many fish. What's a dip net? Like just like a little net or like? A net as big as this table here sort of. Okay. Four feet across or whatever. And with fine mesh so they can't escape.

Can't escape. There'd be two of us, one on each side and we'd scoop it up. They were just one fish on top of the other. Take them to the elevator that was there and they would load it. It would go up. Throw a live fish on the elevator and load it. into the back of a truck. It would go up and fall into the tanker or water. You can imagine driving down the highway folks in and having the tanker.

In my fantasy, it's got, or my dream, it's got a clear wall like a fish tank. You could just see all these fish swimming around. I assume that it wasn't that. It wasn't that. Was it good work? Like, did you enjoy doing that? It was something to do. I was young and didn't know any better. It was a job. When I first got out of high school, I commercial fish for a few years on Las Mountain Lake on the ice. Commercial fished on this lake again? On this lake, yes.

You commercial fished ice fished? No, we commercial fished tollabies. And it was for the mink food of the mink ranchers north of Winnipeg. Winnipeg, it was this area. And we'd fill up a semi-full here, a frozen fish. me and a neighbor we fished every winter for about six weeks

from January 3rd or so to the middle of February and it was cold and the fish were driven down deep into the nets and you know left them on the lake overnight if they weren't frozen right away

and took them the next day home and put them in a truck and haul them to Dilt where there was a Sammy waiting to haul them to Manitoba it's just you know it sounds stupid folks I know on the northern

lakes like we're close to Lloyd like the further you go north some of these stories are more prevalent let's say the fish seems surprising to me maybe but once again maybe I just don't understand different parts of

obviously the western provinces as much as I thought I did but to have that much fish sitting there that you have an industry where you're like shipping fish not only in Chicago but northern Manitoba you think Manitoba would have its own fish sitting there Well, Lake Winnipeg, which is a very large lake, maybe got fished out.

I don't know. Tolabies is a fish that was in Las Mountain Lake, or Long Lake, that wasn't for human consumption. It had a cyst in it. So it was a garbage fish. And so... You fed the garbage fish to the minks. What I understand the mink food was, was from restaurants and that in Winnipeg. They'd feed them, but they would feed them fish the last month that these...

These mink were alive to glisten up their coats to make them all, guess what? The fur industry all fell to pieces. And so there was no more market for them anymore. The lake is probably polluted with Tullabies now again, because nobody fishes them anymore. And we would catch a ton of fish or 2,000 pounds. And these fish are about one to two pounds a fish. They're not very big. The biggest fish of Tullaby I ever seen was three pounds.

you'd squeeze them through the nets and I think the neighbor and I 120, 130,000 pounds one winter, the two of us fished. You fished that? Yeah. But you'd get a if you had to pull them every day. You had to go out there every day because if you left it.

What did that equate to in money? Like was that like 130,000 pounds of fish? Like is that? Three cents a pound. That's the most we ever got to. Three cents a pound. Yeah. You didn't get rich at it. It was just something to do. I was a young guy just out of high school

and needed work to keep me busy doing something. I remember tree planting and getting nine and a half cents a tree. And remember thinking, you know, is it decent money? It was decent money. But by the end of it, you know, like today, we're almost getting carted off by all the mosquitoes. And I remember Northern Ontario. The black flies, the horse flies were the worst even before I got to mosquitoes.

And, but three cents. Yeah, you got a... You weren't your money because you were out in 40 below weather. We had a bombardier. My dad had a bombardier at the time, and we parked in the middle of the lake, and the lake's about a mile wide. And a storm would blow up, and you'd head for the shore, what you thought was, and by the time you got the shore, you were on the other way.

You completely turned around on the lake. So then what would you do? Well, you found the trail that you came on it, and you followed it at home. I assume there was some questionable points that, you're talking about storms and it bombs up on it. I assume you got caught in a couple rough ones because that's well before a cell phone sitting there where you could call or GPS where you could just, okay, take me back to the house and you just look at it from time to time.

No, you used your own imagination and ingenuity. I don't know the term. Ingenuity, yeah. Do you think we're losing that? Ingenuity? How? With being able to just flick on a phone and, you know, I think of the road trip I'm on right now, Henry, you know, like going right across country.

When I first went out to Ontario, I had to do everything by maps. And you just had a map for each province. Plus, I had a map book for all of Western Canada. I actually knew for all of Canada. You had city maps. I remember just the door jam being packed with maps. Now, you know, like with the kids, it's just on a screen and it's just showing it there. You know, and that's just navigation.

I don't mean to say that it's taken away everything. Your garment tells you where to go. Yeah. Make o turn. Yes. You've passed your point. The neighbor I had here was a pioneer, and he was a tough old bird,

and he worked all day in rubber gloves. But he paid for it later in life because he got arthritis in those hands, eh? But he taught me a lot. Hard work wasn't something you went away from. You just dug in and you did it, eh? We fished, I think, was the first two years with a Swedish fellow from Kettleston.

and after two years Bill said to me, he said, he's taught us everything we know. We don't need him anymore, just you and I are going fishing next year. And I did that for three or four years afterwards. I've been fished with my brother for a while too. It was just something you did. There was a certain area that designated that you could get a fishing license to fish on last mountain.

They had two seasons. There was white fish, and the lake first froze over, and there was a Tullaby season that usually happened from January 1st. the third to about the middle of February. Because once it got mild in February, then the fish wouldn't go as deep in the water. And we always fish in the deepest water we could find because it would fill up your nets. But if you didn't pull them every day, those nets would float. And then you'd pull the floats off and you'd pull your net apart trying to get the fish out of it.

Because dead fish float. I'm missing something here because you're talking about fishing in wintertime. Yes? Yes. Ice on the lake? Met fishing about a, about three feet of ice. Okay, so you cut a hole?

Yes, put a jigger in. Yeah, and drop a net in. Well, first you dig a line, the nets are 100 yards. And so the jigger, you pull on a jigger, and it goes to the next hole. And then you dig the hole there and you pull up your line. So now you've got two holes with a line underneath. You put your net on one side and you pull the line out and you push your net in. And then every day you go and you go and you,

yank that line and you just pulling hand over a fist fish coming out of the hole usually your hole's about i don't know two feet wide at the most and if you've got a good catch it's just full of fish you don't pull them out very far because if it's 40 below they stayed on the water for 30 seconds to a minute and they freeze right in the net so you literally have to go and sometimes soak them back in the water or put your hands in the water to thaw them out Because the water's warm underneath the ice. You'll have to ask Jamie about this. I'm sitting there.

I'm going, man, what a wild way to, you know, you just don't think it's Saskatchewan and fishing. That's not something that... More in northern... Right, in the north, for sure. Like, you get in the lake country and like, it's just lake after lake after lake and fishing after fishing. You know, tons of people go up there.

But, you know, I just, once again, you don't... equate those two things. You don't normally catch game fish. Would you keep any of, would you eat any of those? Obviously the ones you were sent them for the minks were they had a parasite and you're like, those aren't human consumption. The white fish were you bringing home fish every night? No.

If you're fishing in the right spot for Tullabes, your nets are in deep water and there's very few game fish there. The odd time you'd maybe find a perch or two or maybe the odd pickerel, but not very often. And of course, it's illegal to take them home. So normally, if you were fishing for Telabees, you went where the Telabee were. Sure. Now, people put nets in where there was game fish, and they got caught at it, and sometimes people had notorious reputations for getting game fish all the time and sold them wherever they wanted to. I stay away from that. Yeah, fair enough. You've been married for 53 years, correct? I was married in 1972, so yes,

this will be our I see I see Francis nodding behind you and and so I go what what advice do you have for what have you learned over 53 years of marriage not to put you on the spot with Francis sitting back there listening I'll be put into hot water eh advice or what have you learned you know you talk about the old cows knowing when to walk around the fence and come back home and and that's life experience If you observe nature, it teaches you a lot if you see and clean that information. Sure. Well, so when I talk to a man who's been married 53 years, I'm coming up on, this will be our 12th year here in August. And we've been together 19 years, I guess, this year.

So I go, well, you're a little past me. What is 53 years tell you? In my mind, and I don't know if the magic number is. 10 or multiples of seven or whatever, but there's certain years that you need to get by. And so historically, if you look at people that get married, how long do they stay married? Ten years is a long time for a couple to stay together in today's environment. Now, I grew up with families that had 23 kids in them, and it was a lifetime job to raise all those kids.

That's an extreme. on the other side, eh? That's part of my history. My mother walked away when I was four years old. So I was a product of a broken family. So that's something that I worked to make sure that didn't happen to my kids. I was raised by my grandmother,

so most of my values are one or two generations older than I am. And if you want to talk about people having tough times, people that live through the 30s, they've got lots of horror stories to tell you, right? But most of the time, it kept them together. It bound them like glue. And so you've got to work through those tough times. I think one thing that I told you,

farming in my mind is a great way to make a living and raise a family. But don't expect to get rich at it. The only rich farmer that I know of is a dead one. And we're all going to get there eventually. And our offspring, per se, benefit from that. But I've never expected to get rich farming per se. It's a way of life. It's something that keeps you getting up every morning and doing something.

Here's the other thing that I'll maybe give you an aspect of, is that you've got to plan your retirement today. We tell kids when they go to school they're going to have four or five different jobs in their lifetime because working for a company for 25 or 30 years, that doesn't happen very often anymore. There's always something that comes up. So as you're going through life, don't be afraid. get involved in your local community on a hall board,

on a weed pool committee or whatever, and we don't have weed pool committees anymore or whatever. But plan what you want to do and keep your options open. A door of opportunity only opens once in a while, and if you don't step through the next time you want to go there, it might not be open. It might be close to you. So you've got to take advantage of your opportunities,

step through those open doors when it comes, and take life as a... things out. Okay, there was a, well, I'm going to, I wish I had my, normally folks, I have my book in front of me and I write jot notes. So you're getting me on the road and I'm going to remember this so that next time I don't do that. You talked about certain years in marriage. The one I'd always was told about was the seven-year itch. And actually, the other one I'd been told about was just the first year. And yet I remember going through the seven-year itch and being like,

That's a strange. I guess I joined the company of my wife. And I was not, I just thought it's, I'm like, that's such a strange. Doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any sense.

Is there any other ones further along the road where you're like, oh, you just wait until your kids all leave the home or, or empty nester? Yeah, or something like that. I don't, I don't know.

When you look at people that are around you sometimes, there's not a lot of families that make it past 10 years for whatever reason. I don't know what that magic. hump is or hill to get over or whatever but you'll talk about to people that have been married 25 or 30 years and they made it past 10

and 20 years, but there's lots of families that don't make it past 10 for whatever reason and I don't know what it is but there's a commitment when you say I do and I take you for better and worse for as long as I live. You have to live up to that. You're going to work at that. And if you don't believe in that,

you're not going to get past those 10 years. Yeah, I would agree. You mentioned doors open, opportunities. What doors have opened for you in your lifetime where you're like, I'm glad I stepped through it? I wasn't one to go and knock down doors, but a lot of the times if somebody asked you to represent them or whatever, that's an opportunity.

And they either had a judgment that I would make decisions that were good for them and whatever. The cooperative system is built on that in regards to cooperation. in the province, but soon happens to be the oldest quap in Saskatchew. We went there today. I took a picture of it. We had coffee there. Me and Jamie went in that copy there. And I was like 1914, eh?

Man, that's old. He's like, oh, we're the oldest in all of Saskatchewan. I'm like, really? I mean, that's, well, a tip of the cap. Because anything, whether it's marriage or business, to have longevity is... Takes a lot of hard work? It takes a lot of hard work. And then it takes people to carry it on.

when the person who's been carrying it decides to step away. Like, it's really difficult. I knew a fellow in Booshaw that worked for the Canadian Wheat Board. And he said he was from a hometown that had the oldest one. I don't remember the name of it. But he said their town became a ghost town, and their quap shriveled up and died. So Bethune, since 1914, has sort of thrived.

Now, they're all by themselves. Dilt just north here. They lost their quop a few years ago. nobody seems to want to pick up but what the co-op committee did here a couple years ago is they built gas bar right on number 11 highway. They've sold over 2 million

liters of fuel already. They've exceeded their expectations so it takes a little bit of foresight hard work and determination to keep these things going all time and to maintain the oldest in the Saskatchewan. I think that's a good milestone to keep working at.

My son's on the committee. Fair enough, yeah. Well, I mean, very interesting when you see the longevity of things, you know, because whether, once again, I go back to talking marriage or you're talking business. Well, you wonder, 10 years of marriage, why is it that people putter out there? I don't know. I mean, you can look at it and deduce a whole bunch of reasons, right? Well, I think some people get bit by a bug or whatever.

My mother, like I said, she walked away when I was just four years old and I was raised by my grandmother. There was probably reasons for that. I never looked into them. But I said my kids weren't going to live through that. Yeah. I felt I was short-changed in life. And yet you said one of the, and I'm glad you brought it back up because you said something there that I was like, that's a really interesting thought. by being raised by your grandmother,

you're actually getting a generation past what your parents would have lived through. That's right. Instructing you and her values and all the stories and everything she's lived through. That's an interesting way of looking at that. I mean, it makes complete sense. I've just never had it put that way before.

Her motto was is that you didn't buy things, frivolous things unless you had the money. And you only borrowed money for very important things like buying a piece of land or maybe building a house. But other than that, you paid with the cash in your pocket. And so a lot of the times you did without because you didn't have the money, especially through the 30s. So money is important for young people today.

So what do you think if I go to the lowest level, just everyday people and you see them borrowing for everything? You can pretty much get a loan to, to get a refrigerator, right? You can go to the brick and go in and you can put it away and you can pay for it on every week. Here's 20 bucks or whatever it is to a vehicle, to obviously your house, to land, you know, on and on.

The quad, the side by side, the boat, on and on and on and on. You've come from the instruction of like, you don't spend money on frivolous things. Well, society is spending money on frivolous things, right now. In my mind, kids coming out of high school, the availability of cash is too easy. You can go and sign up for a credit card, a piece of plastic, whatever, and start borrowing money. And you haven't even got a job yet. You just got out of high school. And that isn't good for society in my mind. People have to learn by mistakes. And sometimes people fall pretty

hard because they have two or three cards they've maxed out and they can't afford to pay it all off. And you hear about bankruptcies and things like that where a lot of that gets taken away. But I don't know what the percentage is, is that do pay their bills. And I think that's important. Is that something that you've got to do? If you borrow money or you build something, you have to pay it off. What do you think then on a, I can't speak to Saskatchewan. Maybe you have better insight, or you probably do. But provincially or federally, like our government. governments and how we've approached money and how we use it. It's too easy to access.

Let's see what years would have been land bank came into effect. Well, this would have been after the 80s. There's a lot of farmers that walked away in the 30s and in the 80s because they couldn't pay for their bills and things like that. And so, Sometimes those mistakes come back to roost and you either declare bankruptcy or you start over. They don't hold it against a person. You just declare bankruptcy and you start over again. So there are as mechanisms to take care of. You have to protect your records then afterwards for a while and prove yourself that you can manage money again.

But just because you went bankrupt doesn't, people don't hold it. That's part of business. Yeah. I'm not sure if it's right or wrong. but that's the way things are. Well, you think of Donald Trump, and one of the things is they always point out he'd bankrupt a bunch of times, right?

But as you just, you're like, well, it's part of business. Start up and go again. You always find a bank that'll lend you some more money, right? Once again, Henry, I don't know if I've ever had it put to me like that. Farmers had an access to the Farm Credit Corporation, which is a federal corporation set up for farmers to buy land. Well, after the 80s, a lot of people

walked away from their farms. Well, they get a bad record. Farm credit wouldn't loan them any more money. But they'll find another young farmer. In my mind, young farmers need help today. And so farms aren't built by buying 20 quarters at a time. They're buying one quarter at a time, managing it,

and then building it up to 20 quarters or whatever. The world is not quite like as easy as that anymore. But during the 30s, a lot of people walked away from the land in the Kettleston area here. And my grandfather, who was an entrepreneur and was able to fix things with his own hands and that, he would either rent or buy from those farmers that were leaving or they would come to him and approach him. Henry, you're a good farmer. We want you to climb our land. And he said, well, I can't afford it right now, but I'll lease it for three years.

And after that time, I'll either buy it or I'll tell you that I can't afford it. and usually in within three years you got a good crop or two in the 40s things turned out but he was a hard worker yeah it's a um you know you always hear of like in our area there's a a book that I have called Fort Pitt trails and it's about the people who came here you know early 1900s and settled the land and the amount of people that left because the cold the grass fires, um, just overall living conditions and just were like, they gave it, like a couple of stories. Just like, here, take my, take my spot. I'm done. It's a horror story that they live through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then though, you find people like it now is this your grandfather?

Forgive me that went around in the 30s buying chunks of land. Like he stayed and it was just like, oh, you're leaving? Oh, wow. Yeah, I'll lease it for a couple of years. And now I got a crop and I'll buy it. those are just as, you know, like, fascinating because lots of people just are like, this is way too, this is way too much. And it's cool to hear that there was others that are like, well, you're going to leave? All right, I'll take your land too and just keep going with it. A lot of times they approached him, I understand. And sorry, was that your grandfather?

My grandma, I never knew my grandfather. He died when my dad was 18. Okay. Yeah. So he was a hard worker. He came from Germany. and he went, like I said, earlier worked for his uncle for three years to pay off his passage. His uncle, his brother was my great-grandfather, who I never knew again.

And then the Germany said there's a great future for a young man that's willing to put some work in here. And so he said, if I didn't just send Henry over here, I'll pay his passage for him. He can work for me for three years, paying it off. Money supply. Go back to the government. You're just saying it's just too easy to act. So when you can print your own money or you can just steer money over there and we're going to, you know, borrow here, we're going to go into debt here. It's just, it's just too easy. And therefore, money has just fallen from everywhere and that's not how the real world operates.

For young people, it opens their eyes up right away, but it's not just the house that they buy. It's like you said, it's the motorhome. It's the boat. It's all the bells and whistles that come along with it, a motorcycle or whatever, eh? and it's things sometimes that you don't need. If you can afford it, that's fine. But you've got to slowly build up that reputation that you can pay those loans off rather than buying at all, and then finding out you don't have a big enough paycheck.

They've got people who work in banks now if you want to buy a new house, they'll come down and literally tell you, well, you don't have a well-enough paying job to pay for all this. You better tone down your expectations, eh? So there is some areas where you can get some expertise to help you out. But most of the time, come out of high school, get a credit card, and go and use it.

And before you know it, it's maxed out. And then, well, I did that once. Why do it two or three times? You get two or three cards, and then all of a sudden you're consolidating all that money and trying to pay off one loan rather than four different ones or whatever, right? Lots of pitfalls. What do you think Do you care at all about AI?

Do you stare at that and wonder about that? Because like I think over, forgive me, Henry, 75, correct? This year, yes. You're turning 75. So you go, in 75 years, you've seen a lot of different changes where I'm sure you're sitting there going like, what are we doing now?

And, you know, like the internet was a giant one. But now you see, I don't know how much you've dabbled in AI maybe you don't even care, but just curious his thoughts. It's something that I haven't really worried about. In my mind, my grandchildren have helped me out a lot with emails and stuff like that. Sure. They're not afraid of this new technology. Push buttons.

They learn it right from day one. I don't know everything that happens. I understand that this has more computing power than the computer that they had when they first landed on the moon. And we all carry this around on our power. We don't have to go to a library. anymore you can Google whatever you want and get all kinds of information well i mean right around today what were we doing i was like what flower is this even i've never seen it before you can take pictures and you get to have apps to tell you what they are yeah yeah so in my mind you shouldn't be afraid of

technology it's something that's going to happen whether you want it to happen or not you just have to have somebody to interpret for you all the time or when you need the help and when you're a little bit older you don't always jump in with both feet you touch your toe and say oh it's cold I better not jump into that lake or whatever. Is there anything you, I don't want to say this. Is there something you think that we're as like the human race is going to get to, whether it's before or after your lifetime, and you're like, yeah, someday we're going to be able to do X.

Is there something that, because I mean like, like you said, the amount of information on this little device is almost hurts your brain at the ability it has. When you look into the future, you're like, I wonder if they'll ever get to the point where they can do X. I'll use an example of a neighbor that I had. And he said he lived in the best time of his lifetime to be a farmer. Because he said that technology has changed so much

that whatever he needed to know was there and available for him. I don't think we should be afraid of technology. It's changing. And farmers, like I said, the biggest gambers going. They're going to try something. and if it pays off, they're going to use it. And if it doesn't pay off, well, that's another idea that didn't work. But farmers, they're always willing to gamble.

And if they find out that something would make $2 out of one, they're going to try it. We're optimists. It's always better next year. What's been the best upgrade of farmers had in the last 50 years? Well, probably this cell phone. Really? Technology. Don't be afraid of Google.

ask questions because it answers them all the time. You still have to interpret it. You can't do everything that it says. And AI, my granddaughter, she's coming back from university in Saskatoon, and she said, look here, Grandma, I picked up a fellow off the highway, and he stopped at Tim Hortons.

One of the teachers of Bethune looked at pictures. That's AI. That isn't a real person, and it turns out she was just pulling Grandma's lane, having fun. Kids aren't afraid to have fun. In the West, you have an independence vote coming for Alberta, October 19th. Your thoughts on Alberta trying to, I mean, it's a question to whether to have a question.

So I don't want to sit here and say full on separation, but certainly to have a question on that. Your thoughts coming from Saskatchewan. Our countries went through that a couple of times in the east. Well, yes, you've got to live through Quebec. That's great. I don't think they were achieving anything and it didn't help anything at all. I think they're pounding themselves against a brick wall someplace in the last year. I know people like to live free or whatever, but there was a reason for people to confederate and become one country.

And I don't think those reasons have changed that much, so I don't believe in it. So not for separation, not for Saskatchewan joining, not for a different conversation to be had with Ottawa? No. everything canada's fine then i wouldn't say it's fine we're we're still evolving per se and that doesn't mean that politics aren't going to change some things but i don't think we should jump on jump into the fire just because it's too hot on our side of the bricks if you had advice then for because you're a guy who's been involved in lots of different boards lots of different you know ways right working with community yeah working with different people representing different

people. If you had advice for whether it's Alberta or people in Saskatchewan that are unhappy or just in general people that are trying to do different things in a country the size of Canada, what advice would you try and, you know, because you've had a lifetime of involvement, what would you say to the people? Well, I think I told you this earlier in our drive around. Don't be afraid of change. A lot of the times you're on those boards to help make decisions. And it's not as an individual, making a decision, you're making it as a group. Sure. So take the information that you have at the time and make a decision. Now, if the information changes, sometimes you have to reevaluate it and make a different

decision with the new information that you have. Maybe that's all Albert is going through right now, is I'm not quite liking what they see in regards to pipelines and stuff like that. So they're questioning the order of things, eh? Well, I think there's multiple things they talk about, right? There's money, for sure, the economics of it. Pipelines is certainly one. The equalization payments is another. And there's a whole list of things economically that they talk about. They have not and they have provinces. And then they and then the other other thing that people talk about is the values, right? You have really strange issues that as a farmer, I'm sure you're like, I can't believe we're ever talking

about this. But men and women's sports, men and women's bathrooms, men and that whole thing that's entered into schools and been a big explosion. As a farmer, I'm sure you sit there and you go, how on earth did we ever get there? Right? You've got maid that's become a, you know, I think it's four point, last statistic I saw was 4.7% of all deaths in Canada are now, you know. People making the decision themselves. Yeah, and allowing it to go, who, lower and lower, right? They're talking, you know, they just had a fight in Parliament about mental health and whether that was a reason to end your life right like it's it's got to really strange places and the list goes on of the different uh issues going on in Canada

but certainly over the Liberals last 10 plus years a lot of it's come in there and I think a lot of alberdens are upset whether it's economically and they're looking at the money side of it as the price of food and gas and houses and everything goes up or they're they're looking at it more from the value side and just seeing some of the policies that are coming in and they're going, why are we doing this? So is it the young people or is there a certain age that's pushing it? I think the values for the people are not there anymore. And like I said, I was raised by my grandmother.

So my values are considerably different than people that I grew up with. And those values are being tested all the time. and right to hear wrongly so we're failing sometimes raising our kids as for the age that's a good question I see I see people all across you know like I interviewed when I first started on this road trip I interviewed a 19 year old girl and I asked her I've been asking everybody the question right I mean it's coming up and I was young when Quebec did their 95 referendum and I wasn't alive for the first one And so, you know, I remember being pretty, like, terrified at the time as a, you know, what would I have been, nine years old, roughly. And just, I didn't fully understand it, but I didn't really pay attention to politics.

Well, we're months away from one, although it's not a binding referendum, it is a referendum to have an actual referendum. And instead of it being in the east, it's in the West. And so I've asked to Gabby about it, and I've been asking more about it. And I find it isn't just like it's 20-year-olds that want this or 80-year-olds that want it. I see a whole spectrum of people that are very much interested in it. That's what I see. I could be wrong. There could be more predominant.

You know, like when you see the Jeff Rath, the Keith Wilson, the Mitch Sylvester, forgive me, I'm probably spacing on a couple other predominant names that have been talking. out about it, Dennis Modry. Certainly they're older than me and they're the ones talking about it. But I don't think that when I show up to a hall and see what's there, it's probably, I would say the average age is 50 plus. I would say that's probably fair. Fair to say. So they're fed up with life or what's driving it? They're a lot in life? I think they're fed up with the liberal government of Canada. Well, there's a reason that you can change that, isn't there? You got to get out of vote. Well, true, and they did go out and vote.

And then they voted in Carney instead of Pierre, right? The last one. And the East brought in the liberals again. And so I think that they're fed up with what's going on out east and why they won't just change a government and get somebody else in there that can do a different job. Questioning federalism. I'll give you an example of things and how they change and if it's for the better or not.

In 66, I was lucky enough to be asked to go with the police boys ban. through the first Grey Cup that they were, Saskatchewan won in Vancouver. In 69, I got asked to go with that band to Montreal. And I remember it distinctly because my instrument froze up. It was so cold when I was marching, I couldn't play. So they put us in a gymnasium big screen television, and I've watched Grey Cup ever since on a big screen television, and easier on your body to not get frozen.

Anyway, in the late 90s, I got put on the Meat Council, connected with Sasweepoo, and the Meat Council meeting that particular year was in Montreal, 98, 97. I don't remember what year it was. And I go back, and I wanted to see a few things and how they'd changed.

There was 50 boys in that band in 69, and they had to know we were red, from Saskatchewan because we'd walk into the department store or a restaurant. And the first thing they would have to ask you in French what you wanted. And our line was, I'm afraid I'm from Western Canada. I don't know what you're saying. I'd like to buy breakfast. Like that, they would switch to English and ask you and show you a menu with English on it.

That's the one thing I noticed different in 97 or 98 when I went the second time. All the signs had changed. There was no English anymore. And I knew they could do it, but they wouldn't switch. So I used my little French than I knew, and I would point at the menu. I got a breakfast, but they wouldn't confer to me. So they were pissed off with me more than I was pissed off with them, I think, because they wouldn't even talk to us sometimes.

That's how the world had changed from 69 to 97, I think. For the better, I don't know. Maybe that's the feedback of them not getting their separate vote accepted. and I think they're doing quite well in Quebec these days, aren't they? Who am I to judge? So then, hmm, because you go... Things have changed, but have they changed for the better? I don't know.

I'm not one to judge. I'm not old enough to judge it, I think. Time will judge that. The reason for Confederation per se hasn't changed that much, people band together to help everybody else out. Sure. So what's one of the things if you look in life, right? 75 years, you look and you go, this was a big contentious thing back in whatever you want to pick.

Don't pick Quebec because that's on the other side. I want Saskatchewan, if you would. So you actually could see how after the ripple effects after this event happened, how it changed. Is there something that sticks out to you? No, not really. The cooperative system has been something that has been something that pioneers fell. back on. They couldn't do for themselves, so they banded together to help each other out. Now, the wheat pool per se got too big for its britches and got bought out by some big companies.

What we know is Viterre or Sass Wheatpole now is called Bunky. One of the biggest grain companies in the world in the States, eh? Can you turn that clock back? No. Things evolve. You go through doors, you try to go back, but the door is shut. So you have to live with some of the decisions that you make. Can't change them. One final one for you. I've been, as we go along this road trip, I'm curious,

Saskatchewan farmer, when you look back at whether it's your childhood or fatherhood, what is your favorite road trip memory? Where did you go? When was it? I don't know. Fran might have to help me with this one. One year,

for whatever reason, we have the Western Development Museum spots in Saskatchewan, one at North Battleford, one at Moose Jaw, one in Saskatoon, and one at Yorkton. And every other weekend or so when we had nothing else to do, we jumped in the vehicle and we'd go and visit one of them. And it was a good way to find out our roots of Saskatchewan, where people came from in different situations and how each area developed. So that's one thing that sticks out to me, it was sort of a bit of an education. Our whole family grew glued together in those road trips, and it was a good way to learn about Saskatchewan. Yeah, I've been to the Western Development

museums are well done. The kids go there for school, and I've got to be a chaper old once, and I just was like, this is like, yeah, actually like really, like, wow, really well done. I don't know how better to say it than that. That's history. Yeah, it's history. And you know, You've said that line to me all day long. It's history. Well, it's history. When you look, what's one thing people in Canada, maybe Western Canada, maybe Saskatchewan, I'll leave you to the exact geography, have forgotten about in history? I don't know.

You've got to live it as it comes, I guess. To say one thing that shouldn't be there is what you're asking? No, you know, you were talking about. I forget if it was First Nations or something along that lines, you know, and you're like, you just, you just bury it and you don't even realize what you're burying because you're actually burying history. It's like there's knowledge right in front of you just open your eyes and see it. Maybe we'll get to there later today, but the medicine wheel is an example. I don't know how many they were in Saskatchewan. I know there's one not very far from here, but I'm guessing hundreds of them were broke up when people broke up the land.

and they were just so many stones but when a person looks at those stones, they're effigies, their tent rings. And usually, rarely close around there's going to be a spring. Where were people moving? They were moving to where they could live and

provide water and sustenance building materials. Some of the first pioneers walked over the best land in Saskatchewan to get the farm here and their light land. But there was a reason for it. There was no stones there to build a house, to build a barn. There was no water. There were springs here and things like that. So people

learned from their environment, and they went to where it was easy to build a farm. And a lot of the times it wasn't in the best land at Saskatchewan. Did you know that the heavy land took a lot more power? And so most people only had a team of oxen or horses. They didn't have a steam engine to break the land. And so the land, when it was broken in the Regina area, the gumble, it turned sour. And you could took two years of summer following before they actually got a crop out of it. Well, they needed a return a lot quicker than two years at that time. Because they came over with a small box car of settlers' effects and whatever,

and it was pretty light equipment. And so they went where it was easy to plow a crop in, throw some seed in the ground, and let it grow. We're a farmer. Do you pay much attention to some of the social issues of the day? Of, you know, settlers and stolen land and them talking about how, you know, you're on our land and different things like that, what's going on in B.C. with fee simple title and giving the land back property rights to the First Nations. Do you ever give that any thought? that book I suggested you to try to be revenge of the land.

Farmers had it pretty tough and there was always some misfortune that ended their lot in life sometimes. So I try not to think of it. Yeah, it's when you're telling the stories, I'm just like, it's hard, you know, this is why I like the Fort Pitt Trail so much

because you go through it and you're like, the one story I like, we were just talking about this before. I stayed out in my parents' place before we got on the road trip. And we got talking about our favorite stories out of the Fort Pit Trail. And the one I liked is they got to Saskatoon and they got their cart and they got their oxen

and they're marching their way out to where we call home. Or roughly in the area, right? It's a grouping of, I don't know how many stories, 200 stories, roughly, something like that. And they stop at the first, they stopped for the night at the first, you know, I don't know,

slew slash where they're going to set up, camp and they go out and grab water and they go to boil it for tea and in it or all these things and can't figure out what it is and it was tadpoles and they said in the in the story good we got supper now and I'm like how do you even remotely get into those shoes and how difficult the time was where tadpoles become sustenance and the stories go on right there's tons of people that got out to our area didn't have time to build a home so they got five kids in a tent in our winters Like, I just, I don't know if there's anyone alive today in Western Canada that go, oh, yeah, that's good. I mean, you know, sign me up for that.

Like, at the bottom, they always say, and we were happy. You know, like, pretty. The ones that weren't happy went back home. Yeah. When it's, when you're out on the prairies and it's 40 below and there's wind howling and you can't see any place, but a foot in front of you or whatever, not easy life that you've asked. to go into and do something, right? And it isn't always, oh, Grandma didn't like it. Nobody told Grandma to say that.

That's just who they blamed was Grandma. But it was tough time. Horses were dying, freezing to death. Cows were dying, freezing to death, because it was 40 below. Can't change that. We build houses today to stay away from that 40 below weather. Yeah, we've done a lot of things

to keep us out of the elements. Yeah. I think of even my kid's hockey. We drove to minus 50, a drive, drove in minus 50 wind chill to a hockey game. And I'm like, you would have never done this when I was a kid.

This is, this is silliness. But with the phones and the vehicles of today, we think we're invincible, if you would. We always have a lifeline to some place that I was going to come and help us, right? Yeah.

Well, Henry, appreciate you sitting down and doing this and taking the time to show me everything. Like it was, pretty incredible what you have here and the area and everything else. Is there anything I've missed that you want to make sure that gets on, whether it's about anything? You've covered more than I expected already. Well, that's what I try and do.

That's your job. Yes, it is. I appreciate you sitting down and doing this with me. I think I was reading some of the texts that Henry was back and forth with you. And your comment was, is that why do I mean? to meet these two fellows other than I know they're related to you specifically. Well, it's funny because he rattled off a whole bunch of things here, you know. One of the things I probably didn't ask is Jamie's dad and your grandfather or Henry's grandfather.

You used to know each other back in the day. And, you know, I should say when we were on our way over, Jamie was talking very highly about not only your family, but your son and Henry, right? There's a real connection there, I guess. But it's been great to get to sit with you for the day and have you show me around and laugh at me. I showed up, any farmer I'll know, I showed up in sandals and shorts and there's mosquitoes as thick. You can't get swat enough of them and you humored me anyways and I appreciate that. But either way, thanks for.

I enjoyed it. Yeah, thanks for showing me around and then doing this as well. Good enough.