Remembering the farm : memories of farming, ranching, and rural life in Canada, past and present

Summary: "Armed with a tape recorder and a keen sense of curiosity, Allan Anderson set off across the country to find out what living on a farm meant--and still means--to Canadians. Three years and thousands of miles later -- after countless conversations in hotels, cafes, farmhouses, and even out in the field -- he has produced a unique and delightful book. 'Remembering the farm' proves that the rural story-telling tradition is still alive and flourishing in Canada. ... Every kind of farming is covered and there is great range in the setting of the stories: tales of homesteaders battling the cold in the Peace River country mingle with stories of days spent in the scorching tobacco fields of southern Ontario, while the tragic fate of a Newfoundland fishing and farming community contrasts with the success of an Okanagan Valley farmer who faced every kind of setback before establishing his fruit farm. Some of the stories are set in the past (older people recall going to help with the prairie grain harvest, or working on an old steam threshing outfit, and so on), while others deal with the present. ... There is tragedy here: women who found the isolation of prairie farms too much for them, men who lost limbs to saws, smothered in quicksand, or were cut to bits by runaway discers, old people who were forced off the farm by unscrupulous developers. There are natural disasters aplenty....But the book is full of humour, of hilarious anecdotes told in the distinctive rural story-telling style. ... Men and women, old and young, ranchers and grain farmers, apple growers and horse breeders - a full range of Canadian farm life is represented here in this astonishing book."--Publisher book jacket.

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