This is a picture of Gil (on the right) in a field of flowers from which Canola Oil is made. It is on his Great Grandfather''s Homestead 28 miles S.E. of Calvary, Alberta and 70 miles North of the Montana border.
Gil''s roots in farming go back three generations to one tough guy that carved a homestead out of the prairies of Western Canada. If you look closely on the horizon in the background you will see the beautiful Canadian Rockies erupt out of the High Plains prairie.
Legend has it my Great Grandfather went west on horseback and homesteaded his property just before the turn of the century in 1897. He made it through the Dust Bowl years when others simply walked off and abandoned their land. Bare in mind, Canada became a country in 1867 and Custer was killed at the Little Bighorn just South of here in 1876. It was a raw existence with an area inhabited by a Nothern Sioux of the Canadian First Nation formally called the Blood Indians. Evidently, my Great Grandfather had more than a few encounters. At one point he roundedup 4 boxcar loads of Indian Ponies and along with a guardian and an ample supply of hay, shipped them East to Montreal to be sold as draft horses. The story goes that when his brother received them in Montreal, opened the gate, then spent 3 days rounding them up from all over the city, the return telegram to my Great Grandfather was life-threatening.