The old green-and-yellow tractor wheezes like an asthmatic locomotive as Ray Schmidt struggles to start it.
"I've got something wrong with the starter on this guy," he says, as it belches yet another cloud of grey smoke.
These antique tractors are always suffering from dead batteries, fouled gas or faulty starters, he explains, as it continues to clank, whir and choke. "They get a little cantankerous, them old guys." Finally, after filling the barn with more smog than Los Angeles on a bad day, the darn thing turns over.
Schmidt, 70, says he grew up driving an old John Deere tractor like this one in Saskatchewan. "Hated it," he cackles, "but now we play with them."
The Sturgeon County resident is one of about a hundred members of the Strathcona Vintage Tractor Association that will be at Bremner House this weekend for the group's seventh annual tractor pull and show, where members will use antique tractors to haul sleds and harvest grain.
It takes a lot of work to keep these old rides running, Schmidt says, but to him, it's worth it. "Some people collect cars. We collect tractors."
Farmin' old school
The Strathcona tractor club has been around since 2005, says group president Mike Ballash, and draws members from throughout the Edmonton region. Club members focus on the preservation and use of vintage farm equipment, defined as anything made before 1960.
Schmidt, who runs a metal fabrication shop in Edmonton, says he has about 50 tractors in his collection, about 40 of which are operational. Most cost less than $20,000, and many of them are crammed into a barn near his home in Sturgeon County.
The cantankerous clanker he started earlier was a 1960 Model 730 gas-standard John Deere, he says — one of only 292 ever made. "New tires, new batteries, it's all been redone." Restoring these rides can mean hunting down old parts, hiring machinists and making components from scratch.
This weekend's event will feature displays of antique tractors and demonstrations of traditional harvest and threshing techniques, Ballash says. The main event, the pull, starts at 10 a.m.
Tractor pulls challenge drivers to haul a weighted sled as far as they can without spinning out, says Schmidt, himself a veteran puller. The two-wheeled sled has a roughly three-metre-by-three-metre pan on the front that presses on the ground, and carries a 1,400- to 4,500-kilogram weight. As the sled rolls forward, a chain hauls the weight towards the front of the sled. "The closer that weight gets to the front, the harder it is to pull that sled." Eventually, the tractor skids out, sometimes with its front wheels almost a half-metre off the ground.
These tractors must be completely unmodified, Ballash says, so success depends on the driver's skill. Tire pressure, gear ratios, track conditions and timing can make the difference between a long pull and a short spinout.
Most pullers will start in first gear and stay there for the whole pull, Schmidt says. "You're moving very slow," he says — two kilometres an hour, tops. Many models can handle surprisingly large loads considering their age. "We've got guys out there pulling tractors that are made in 1925 or 1926 on steel wheels."
The event runs all weekend starting at 10 a.m. Admission is $5. For details, call John Bowerman at 780-467-4282 or visit www.strathconavintagetractor.com.
