The Economist:A remote Canadian province luxuriates in the global supply crunch.
18 Replies to “In A Land Far, Far Away…”
Kate,
You are two or three plane changes away from the important people in NYC, LA, or Frisco. That’s remote!
WorstJet and Air Canucklehead can get you from Saskatoon to the Centre of the Universe on one aircraft. That is, as long as you don’t mind it “barnstorming” all the way.
Kate,
Your homeland of Saskatchewan with adjoining Alberta is the area I’m eyeing for an exodus when and if it comes to that choice…Live free or die if you catch my drift …I’m in Ontario since I moved out of Quebec in 95….with what’s happening to Canada, I didn’t move westward far enough I guess.
I have a house in Vonda that I can rent you, if you want! Recently arrived here from Ontario. I picked Vonda as it puts me roughly right in the middle between my two heroes – Kate and Quick Dick McDick. Oh, and that Hand Tool Rescue guy is somewhere nearby, too.
About that article: laughed at their meance quotes around “drillers”. Never heard them called that before – are they confusing oil rig guys with drills? I suspect the rest of the article contains other menace quotes for things the authors misheard and just don’t understand, like “pickup trucks” and “Dear John” tractors.
“The little Province that could”??!!! The Province is almost twice the size of Germany, and is about 50,000 square km bigger than Ukraine.
As for remote, it’s just over the way from Alberta, just a nice easy drive before I hit my destination in Manitoba.
And they’re getting Netflix next year.
Who the hell wrote this?
That’s like saying Los Angeles is the lost city of Atlantis.
Technically Los Angeles is a lost city. Saskatchewan is going to have a good run. It has oil & gas, potash, uranium, and it grows food. I hear the people are nice there too 🙂
Now if only someone could turn up the thermostat.
I just hope it doesn’t make us here in SK a global/Gates/WEF/Soros target.
You already are. That evil nitrogen, you know…
In the absence of food and resources from Russia, Canada should be in a good position economically supplying the western world. However, it is the political classes of the western world that have given us this potential advantage, so …
Damn you, remote Canadian provinces.
The stupid thing is we used to export grain to the USSR. It was always a thing where if the USSR misbehaved, we would suspend shipments, etc. Whatever happened to that? We’re just growing canola and sunflowers now?
Russia and Ukraine grow their own wheat, mainly.
BTW, from New York or London, all Canadian provinces are remote.
I worked for a farmer co-operative from 2014 to 2017 and learned “so much” about farming in Saskatchewan. In the south west, it is primarily cattle country, in the south east, it is lentils and canola. These are short crops which provide a canopy over the roots for shade and to help retain moisture. In the central and northern area (up to about Prince Albert) it is wheat, rye and barley. Oh! I forgot between Alberta and Saskatchewan, the 2 provinces grow 95% of the world’s mustard for shipment to the United States and Europe. We even flew a small plane load of mustard to Taiwan back in 2015.
As I retired, I do not know what the co-operative is doing now, but they were a great bunch of people and I wish them all success.
By the way, if I have made any mistakes, it is my lack of understanding about total agriculture in this province.
(With “Barret’s Privateers” being sung softly in the background)
Many long years ago, I chanced to find myself in the company of an old seadog, who among many others, told me the tale of his voyage to India and back on one of the fine “Canadian National” ocean going grain carriers of that era. The ship was hauling a cargo of Canadian government food aid, Canadian wheat, on delivery to our distant, now independent, subcontinent British Commonwealth cousins. Cutting to the chase, on arrival at the destination, he noted an empty Soviet freighter not unlike his own berthed directly across the dock. Once the Canadian ship’s cargo started being unloaded onto the dock, it was just as efficiently reloaded into the the Soviet one…
Paywalled, but here’s an archived text: https://archive.ph/fdzVN
An interesting article, despite traces of condescension:
// Saskatchewan is often said to be Canada’s heartland, full of cheerful, guileless folk who are just a generation or two off the farm if not still on it.[…] No other province has seen such slow population growth. Over the past century the ranks of Saskatchewanites have increased by half to 1.2m while the country’s population has quadrupled. The provincial government has been keen to take as many Ukrainian refugees as it can get. But despite ample jobs, cheap housing and a diaspora, Ukrainians have not come flocking.//
It’s called a “remote” province because no one there ever touches their television set.
Kate,
You are two or three plane changes away from the important people in NYC, LA, or Frisco. That’s remote!
WorstJet and Air Canucklehead can get you from Saskatoon to the Centre of the Universe on one aircraft. That is, as long as you don’t mind it “barnstorming” all the way.
Kate,
Your homeland of Saskatchewan with adjoining Alberta is the area I’m eyeing for an exodus when and if it comes to that choice…Live free or die if you catch my drift …I’m in Ontario since I moved out of Quebec in 95….with what’s happening to Canada, I didn’t move westward far enough I guess.
I have a house in Vonda that I can rent you, if you want! Recently arrived here from Ontario. I picked Vonda as it puts me roughly right in the middle between my two heroes – Kate and Quick Dick McDick. Oh, and that Hand Tool Rescue guy is somewhere nearby, too.
About that article: laughed at their meance quotes around “drillers”. Never heard them called that before – are they confusing oil rig guys with drills? I suspect the rest of the article contains other menace quotes for things the authors misheard and just don’t understand, like “pickup trucks” and “Dear John” tractors.
“The little Province that could”??!!! The Province is almost twice the size of Germany, and is about 50,000 square km bigger than Ukraine.
As for remote, it’s just over the way from Alberta, just a nice easy drive before I hit my destination in Manitoba.
And they’re getting Netflix next year.
Who the hell wrote this?
That’s like saying Los Angeles is the lost city of Atlantis.
Technically Los Angeles is a lost city. Saskatchewan is going to have a good run. It has oil & gas, potash, uranium, and it grows food. I hear the people are nice there too 🙂
Now if only someone could turn up the thermostat.
I just hope it doesn’t make us here in SK a global/Gates/WEF/Soros target.
You already are. That evil nitrogen, you know…
In the absence of food and resources from Russia, Canada should be in a good position economically supplying the western world. However, it is the political classes of the western world that have given us this potential advantage, so …
Damn you, remote Canadian provinces.
The stupid thing is we used to export grain to the USSR. It was always a thing where if the USSR misbehaved, we would suspend shipments, etc. Whatever happened to that? We’re just growing canola and sunflowers now?
Russia and Ukraine grow their own wheat, mainly.
BTW, from New York or London, all Canadian provinces are remote.
I worked for a farmer co-operative from 2014 to 2017 and learned “so much” about farming in Saskatchewan. In the south west, it is primarily cattle country, in the south east, it is lentils and canola. These are short crops which provide a canopy over the roots for shade and to help retain moisture. In the central and northern area (up to about Prince Albert) it is wheat, rye and barley. Oh! I forgot between Alberta and Saskatchewan, the 2 provinces grow 95% of the world’s mustard for shipment to the United States and Europe. We even flew a small plane load of mustard to Taiwan back in 2015.
As I retired, I do not know what the co-operative is doing now, but they were a great bunch of people and I wish them all success.
By the way, if I have made any mistakes, it is my lack of understanding about total agriculture in this province.
(With “Barret’s Privateers” being sung softly in the background)
Many long years ago, I chanced to find myself in the company of an old seadog, who among many others, told me the tale of his voyage to India and back on one of the fine “Canadian National” ocean going grain carriers of that era. The ship was hauling a cargo of Canadian government food aid, Canadian wheat, on delivery to our distant, now independent, subcontinent British Commonwealth cousins. Cutting to the chase, on arrival at the destination, he noted an empty Soviet freighter not unlike his own berthed directly across the dock. Once the Canadian ship’s cargo started being unloaded onto the dock, it was just as efficiently reloaded into the the Soviet one…
Paywalled, but here’s an archived text: https://archive.ph/fdzVN
An interesting article, despite traces of condescension:
// Saskatchewan is often said to be Canada’s heartland, full of cheerful, guileless folk who are just a generation or two off the farm if not still on it.[…] No other province has seen such slow population growth. Over the past century the ranks of Saskatchewanites have increased by half to 1.2m while the country’s population has quadrupled. The provincial government has been keen to take as many Ukrainian refugees as it can get. But despite ample jobs, cheap housing and a diaspora, Ukrainians have not come flocking.//
It’s called a “remote” province because no one there ever touches their television set.