Alberta Century Farm and Ranch Award

Two Hills Area Family Receives Alberta Century Farm and Ranch Award

Michelle Pinon - News Advertiser

A sunny winter morning in early February. Members of the Lapaschuk family are gathered around to talk about farming and share their thoughts on what it has meant to them in the past and what it continues to mean to them in the present. Ed shakes his head from side to side with a broad smile, wondering what his grandparents Nikolay and Domnica Lapaschuk would think of all the new technological advancements and new methods of farming now, 100 years later. Smiling along with Ed is his wife Sylvia, (nee Zukiwski) also grew up on a farm in the Two Hills area. The couple farm with their son Neal, daughter Kelly and sonin-law Terry Dulaba, with the help of their teenage grandson Ayden Lapaschuk. The original farmland of Ed’s grandparents is located six miles north of Two Hills where they raised eight children. Ed remembers as a young boy unloading grain from a steel wheeled wagon and now Ayden helps him unload from a grain trailer.

Over the years many physical changes have taken place on the land going from wooden granaries to smaller steel bins and now large steel bins. Machinery also changed from his grandfather’s Massey 44 tractor to the big four-wheel drive tractors. Combining with horses and threshing machine to the super-sized combines of today.

Ed says, “Life back then was simple, more relaxed, but hard. Now farming is a real challenge and at times much harder.” He remembers visiting his grandparents in their three-room house. His uncle Dan, being single, lived with Ed’s grandparents until the passing of his grandmother in 1970. Uncle Dan remained on the land for a few years before moving to Edmonton and selling the land to Ed.

Lapaschuk family award.

(Michelle Pinon/Photo)

In the spring of 1978 Ed and Sylvia moved into the same three room house with two small children. Slowly, a new house was built and over the years all the old buildings were removed and new ones were put up.

Collectively, the family farms close to 3,000 acres and they have 100 head of cattle. “Mostly Black Angus. They don’t run as hard as Simmentals. So, there’s not as many fences to jump,” chuckles Ed, who says he just loves seeing the baby calves.

Both Ed and Sylvia worked off the farm for a time. Ed worked at the grain elevator in Hairy Hill and did some custom hauling of bales before local farmers before they all had their own outfits. Sylvia worked at Alberta Treasury Branch in Two Hills for 27 years before her retirement.

Neal began farming with the family after the recession hit six years ago, prompting the career change from geomatics, (land surveying) to farming, and deciding to purchase property in the Willingdon area.

Even though Terry and Kelly live in St. Albert, Terry works and resides on the family farm fulltime from April to November.

In the summer he and Kelly fit in some time to do some camping. Terry’s friends always want to come out from the city to help out with harvest.

Terry grew up on a farm near Innisfree and has worked in the agricultural sector all his adult life. He says technology makes information more accessible now. One of the ways is by texting different elevators for the price of grain prices and receiving instant results. Another example, adds Terry, “If something breaks down you can go to your laptop and search parts catalogues and call the dealer with what you need. Whereas before you had to explain to them without having pictures to show them.” He points out that it has definitely helped to reduce the turn-around time during a break down.

From L-R: Neal Lapaschuk, son Ayden Lapaschuk, Ed and Sylvia Lapaschuk, and Kelly and Terry Dulaba.

(Michelle Pinon/Photo)

“With technology you are also able to watch the weather. Myself, I do custom spraying and spraying on the farm. To be able to open a weather app and see a radar map and look at forecasts is great. Is it 100 percent reliable? No. But it’s a really good indicator.”

Neal said that GPS also saves on input costs when seeding, fertilizing and spraying as it reduces overlap on passes. “The more you cut down on that overlap the less passes on the field, so at the end of the day you’re saving money.”

Even though Kelly doesn’t farm, she spent many years working in the Crown Prosecutors office and recently began working in Technology and Innovation for the Government of Alberta, serving as a broadband portfolio analyst.

Ayden is a Grade 10 student at Two Hills School. A competitive baseball player, he dreams of playing in the big leagues one day. He loves the peacefulness of the farm and helping out as much as he can. College is also in the back of his mind as well, but he has not yet decided on a particular career path.

Zukiwski family award.

(Michelle Pinon/Photo)

Having worked hard himself and persevered during the difficult times, Ed said it is such an honour to receive the Alberta Century Farm and Ranch Award which recognizes farm families who have been actively farming and continue to own the same parcel of land for 100 years or more. Sylvia’s family, (Michael D. Zukiwiski family) also received the same award for farming for a century between 1903 and 2003.

Ed says it is nice to be recognized and is humbled to continue to be stewards of the land and help to preserve this way of life. “I still remember my grandmother saying, and she’d say it in Ukrainian, better days are coming. And they definitely did.”