International Harvester in spotlight

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This article was published 27/07/2018 (2641 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Inspired by the nostalgic feelings associated with running and repairing machinery on his family’s Forrest area farm, Cameron Hales took up restoring vintage tractors as a hobby.

The icing on the cake to this already-rewarding effort is provided by the Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede, which started on Thursday and runs through Sunday, a couple miles south of Austin.

The annual event finds various vintage farm machines from throughout a wide swath of North America converge at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum site, where like-minded people come together to discuss the ins and outs of fixing up the machines.

This year’s theme is International Harvester, and Hales is offering a significant contribution by bringing six of his International Harvester tractors to the event.

Although his family’s 86-year-old farm generally used Case machines, he said that International Harvesters were more abundant in the area and were easy to come by once people knew that he was starting a collection.

The hobby is one that he said many “farm kids” seem to pick up, inspired by an upbringing wherein machinery is generally fixed on site as much as possible.

Manitoba Agricultural Museum board member Brad Moorehead said that he expected to find more than 100 vintage machines show up on Thursday; a number that would increase throughout the weekend, and are on top of the machines already on display as part of the museum’s efforts.

Although the event draws from a wide-reaching area, he said that there are plenty of vintage machine hobbyists in Westman alone.

“They will restore something that their grandfather had, and it will become a family heirloom that they’ll have for generations,” he said. “It’s a connection with the past. A lot don’t farm anymore, but their parents did, their grandparents did and this is a way of holding on to that.”

Moorehead is one of these vintage farm machine enthusiasts.

Growing up on a farm north of Douglas, he said that there was always a lot of manual labour in dealing with old equipment in order to help it viable.

While some people still use vintage machines, for most owners it’s a hobby, with their machines only taken out for special occasions such as what this week’s event provides.

“This is a way of connecting and holding onto that memory,” he said, adding that this is why the annual Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede is such a hit.

“It’s big, and we not only have that, but a rodeo on, a band playing every night and activities; a sawmill and thrasher operating,” he said, adding that all manner of vintage machines and not just tractors are being put on display.

Hales said that the annual event carries an increasing importance in this day and age, when those maintaining vintage power machines are getting older.

“There aren’t as many farm kids as they used to be, and the generation now want to fix up the things that they grew up with, and that stuff’s from the ’60s and ’70s,” he said, adding that the older stuff that he grew up fixing, from the ’40s and ’50s is increasingly falling by the wayside.

But this won’t be a concern during this week’s event, where vintage machine enthusiasts have painstakingly maintained and restored various pieces of machinery, which will be displayed and demonstrated alongside various family-friendly activities throughout the event, including a rodeo and live music.

The event takes place throughout the weekend, with a full schedule of events available online at threshermensmb.ca.

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