Tour honours lost mom, wife
ELMIRA — Henk Schuurmans’ ribs are healed and soon he hopes he’ll be able to walk without crutches again.
His heart is another matter. Last Thursday, the Elmira dairy farmer climbed into a pickup truck to resume a journey he began earlier this summer.
That first trip, to promote Canada’s dairy farmers, ended in tragedy on July 9 when the tractor he and his wife Bettina Schuurmans were travelling in was rear-ended by a semi-trailer. Bettina, 55, was killed immediately in the collision.
As he recovered from his injuries, including a broken pelvis, a grieving Schuurmans began to feel compelled to go back on the road to finish the cross-country trip.
“This is part of the healing of my broken heart, I guess,” he said, over the phone from a park bench outside Red Deer, Alta.
This time, he took his daughters Lize and Emily along. Instead of a tractor, they drove his son’s white pickup truck, painted like a black and white Holstein with a large plastic cow strapped onto the back.
They called their trip the Canadian Milk Tour, part of an unofficial campaign to lobby for homegrown dairy producers — at a time when protections for Canada’s milk industry are under threat in NAFTA trade talks with the U.S.
On Saturday, Schuurmans and his daughters visited the site of the fatal crash, on a rural stretch of prairie highway outside Saskatoon. It would have been the couple’s 28th wedding anniversary.
It was difficult to be there, Schuurmans said, but he needed to see it.
“It’s a very tragic thing that happened here. We had so much fun, my wife and I, on the first three weeks of our trip, and I wanted them to see it.”
Schuurmans is recovering well. He had metal pins implanted in his shattered pelvis to help him heal.
“I just felt I had to finish the trip. I needed to find healing and try to make sense of it. I can’t describe it any other way, I just had to do it.”
Bettina never got the chance to see the Rockies, he said. It was an emotional day when he and his daughters drove into the mountains under a clear blue sky.
“It was very special to be there, and have the feeling that Bettina is still with us,” he said.
The support they’ve had along the way has made the journey easier, he said. Farmers have welcomed them into their homes, and strangers have honked in support as they’ve made their way westward.
They’ve been overwhelmed by the cards, messages and flowers that have poured in. Donations totalling tens of thousands were sent to a GoFund Me page. Back in Elmira, the family’s freezer is stuffed with food from the local community.
“It’s been very heartwarming in this difficult time,” he said. “It’s helped me keep going. There’s no words to describe it.”