By Jill Slater

Saskatchewan family farms: harvest with the Heenans

Sep 30, 2014 | 7:29 AM

Some Saskatchewan families are spending a lot of time in together this time of year while working long hours.

“I’ll be doing this until I’m 60,” said 27-year-old Caleb Heenan, as he climbed the steps to the combine.

Caleb is just one young man bucking the Canadian trend. According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, there are fewer and fewer young farm operators; that, coupled with the shrinking number of family farms, and Caleb and his family are the minority.

The number of farms has consistently dropped in the last few decades, but Saskatchewan is losing more of them than other provinces. Farm numbers in this province have dropped 12.4 per cent in recent years. That’s a decrease of more than 6,000 farms, according to Statistics Canada.

The Heenans are one family operation ready for the long haul.

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Caleb says the crops are looking fine this year, especially the canola. He’ll be in the combine for another three weeks or so.

“I think the first time I ran one on my own was when I was 12,” said Caleb. “I was riding with my dad and he asked if I would like to sit on the seat and drive it. Back then we didn't have any of this auto-steer or anything like that so you were doing everything manually. As a young boy that's awesome. You know, that's a lot of power underneath your butt and it's a big toy, right? So that was awesome – awesome day.”

Unlike some parents who get nervous when they allow their children to drive for the first time, Dale Heenan said it was pretty special to share that moment with his son.

“It's awesome. Moments like that are priceless when they first get on,” Dale said. “We had a grandson here the other day with a first ride. His older sister had been out a couple of years before and had some good rides. All those moments are precious. Those are what kind of make everything worthwhile.”

Caleb says he felt pretty at-home sitting at the wheel that day.

“You watch long enough and you're younger, you're maybe not quite aware of everything that could go wrong. No, I wasn't nervous at all. It was awesome,” said Caleb. “Once you've driven one of these, it's kind of disappointing driving anything else.”

One family member missing from the field is Deb Heenan. She’s back at the homestead four miles south on a grid road off of the TransCanada near Grand Coulee. And like many farm wives, she’ll be bringing lunch later in the day.

But her husband is very quick to point out that’s not all she does.

“We have anywhere from five to nine people working here and coming and going, stuff like that, truckers, so yeah, it keeps her pretty busy; between that, and the book work and looking after the CEO-type stuff. Yeah, everybody's busy,” said Dale.

Caleb plans to keep the family farm going after his dad retires—whenever that is.

“He's still got a few more years left in him. He couldn't do anything else, I don't think,” he said.

And who knows? Maybe those grandkids will get hooked on farming like Caleb did.

“There's a lot of “favourite parts” here but it's always special when kids, grandkids are coming along,” said Dale. 

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