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“Pic of the Week”, August 24, 2018: A Disappearing Prairie Icon
Grain elevators, prairie sentinels, prairie cathedrals — all synonyms for the large structures that have dotted the Canadian prairies for more than a century. I recall when traveling across the plains as a boy, you could spot these wooden towers at great distances — often 20 or more miles away — providing welcome relief to the otherwise flat landscape. Each elevator was a storage facility that marked the location of a prairie town; the larger and more plentiful elevators were in a given location, the larger and more prosperous the town.
The business of the prairies is agriculture and mechanisms needed to be developed to get the bountiful grain crops to world markets. After some experimentation with bagging the grain, it …
Aug 23, 2018
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“Pic of the Week”, September 1, 2017: Canola field, Saskatchewan
I had a pleasant drive across the Canadian prairies this summer with my father. While the landscape is flat and lacks relief, it was a great time to do the trip because the canola and flax were blooming, adding a lot of color to the landscape. And the first cutting of hay was being bailed, putting a fresh pleasant scent in the wind.
Canola has become a popular crop in Canada these past few decades and canola fields are everywhere. The plants are about a meter high and produce beautiful small yellow flowers that ripen into bean-like pods. Black seeds from the pods are harvested and crushed to create canola oil and meal. Canola seeds contain about 45 percent oil …
Aug 31, 2017
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