In September of 2020, I mounted a GoPro camera to the guts of our combine, putting harvest on pause for a few minutes. My dad started up the rotor and harvested a few feet of canola. The footage is interesting. I uploaded the clip to YouTube and, as of today, it has 44,236 views.
There is a long list of things our picture of a typical farmer doesn’t do, believe or say. Toss the list. Watching me set up cameras and camera mounts on your tractor and seeding equipment when all you want to do is be productive and get to the field may be incredibly frustrating. However, let’s talk again when I show you the footage.
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This column is about preparedness and the benefits of atypical combinations.
My farm has a snowmobile. It has always had one. Every decade or so, it gets replaced. However, two things remain consistent — it’s old and it works well enough to pull a couple of kids (and perhaps a daring adult or two) around the yard on an inflated tractor tube. This is all we’ve ever required of our sled. That is, until this winter, when I summoned my 2004 Arctic Cat 570 out of dormancy for a 120-mile foray through the Manitoba wilderness.
About 30 miles into the forest trails of Nopiming Provincial Park, I spotted it — an adult lynx. I knew there had been sightings in the area, but my hope of seeing one was faint.
Set against this faint hope and the equally faint hope of seeing a moose or a bald eagle, I painstakingly packed a backpack full of camera gear, mounted a GoPro to my chest and clamped a 360-degree video camera to the brake side of my handlebar. It must have been frustrating for the person I was riding with, who was ready to ride long before I was.
It darted across the snowmobile trail and into the woods. I slammed the breaks while simultaneously pulling over and killing the power. I entered a state of hyperfocus. My mission became singular. I needed to prepare for the possibility of seeing a lynx.
I threw my backpack to the ground. I ripped open the top flap and began rummaging around, attempting to quickly detach my landscape lens from my camera body and replace it with the telephoto I’d need if that lynx were to reappear. It was cold. Who knows where I threw my gloves or shed my helmet. I was too focused to think about such non-lynx related things. Of the stuff I thought to pack, I managed to assemble a gear combination best able to capture this rare opportunity.
The snow is quite deep in Nopiming, and I was told later that much of the wildlife in the area prefer walking on the groomed snowmobile trails. The lynx reappeared — on the trail — about 100 feet in front of me. My telephoto is large — like the kind you see on the sidelines at professional sporting events. And it’s quite heavy.
I heaved it up, focused and pressed the trigger. Silence. The shutter did not make a sound. That is because the last time I used the camera, I was taking photographs of the northern lights, which requires the camera to be as still as possible for long periods of time. Not only did I have a two-second timer set between when the shutter button is pressed and the shutter is activated, but I also had my exposure set for 15 seconds.
By the time I had figured all of this out, the lynx had rounded the corner and was a step or two out of sight. I walked towards it, hoping it wouldn’t run away. It didn’t. I took a lot of photos. It was and appeared far away, even at full extension of my telephoto. I had no way of knowing if I was getting photos that were properly focused or had good perspective. I would only know that once I got back to my laptop.
I got the shot.
Taking the time to prepare and pack my gear paid off. I felt vindicated, and I became bent on the idea that, though I was adequately prepared, I could have been more so. I should have double-checked my camera settings before packing it away.
My old sled rose to a challenge that will forever alter this farm’s relationship with the snowmobiles it purchases. It wasn’t about making miles for the two of us riding snowmobiles that day. It was about enjoying the day exactly how we wanted to enjoy it. For me, that involved stopping often to take photos. For my riding partner, it also meant stopping often to follow animal tracks through the forest.
I hope that those who feel stilted or stifled by the moulds they find themselves in read this and understand that being a farmer, or being a farmer in a certain area, doesn’t mean you can’t install a painting easel in your tractor cab in preparation for a breathtaking sunset or whatever atypical idea you’ve always wanted to realize.
