Tractor trip ends in tragedy
Elmira couple wanted to promote Canadian family dairy farms
ELMIRA — Henk and Bettina Schuurmans were hoping their cross-country trip by tractor would be an adventure that would help draw attention to Canadian dairy farmers. On Monday morning, it ended in tragedy. Their John Deere 6430 was struck by a semitrailer at around 9 a.m. on a rural stretch of highway between Saskatoon and Langham, Sask.
Bettina, 55, was killed in the crash. Henk was rushed to hospital in critical condition, and was stabilized by doctors.
The news of the crash has stunned the Schuurmans’ friends and family, who had cheered the couple on when they left their Elmira dairy farm more than two weeks ago.
The Schuurmans have five adult children. The couple have always been proud of their dairy farming roots, friends say, with nine generations of the family making milk dating back to 17th-century Holland.
“It’s a massive loss,” said Murray Sherk, a Dairy Farmers of Ontario board member who worked with Henk Schuurmans on the Waterloo Dairy Producers committee.
“Dairy farming was their life. That is what they lived for, and they were very passionate about it.”
One of the last people to see the couple before the accident was Mark Schwaerzle, who works at Saskview Farm Solutions. They had parked their tractor at his company’s shop over the weekend.
“They were in very good spirits. They were talking about all the nice people they’d met in Saskatoon, and were excited for the rest of their journey,” said Schwaerzle, who posted a video of the smiling Schuurmans leaving on Monday morning, just a few hours before he learned of the crash.
“It’s very hard. To be one of the last people to see them before they pushed off, it’s hard to wrap your head around.”
The couple, who moved to Canada from the Netherlands in the mid-1980s, were headed toward Edmonton on a divided, four-lane highway when the collision occurred. The driver of the semi-trailer was not injured.
The Schuurmans planned to take over a month to drive their tractor to the West Coast, as part of a campaign to draw attention to the supply management system for Canadian dairy farmers.
They fixed a giant plastic cow, nicknamed Maple, to the back of their tractor, and documented their trip on social media along the way.
A big, white sign affixed to the front of their John Deere read, “Keep my milk 100 % Canadian,” and one on the back read, “Honk to support quality milk produced by Canadian farm families.”
The couple said they would camp and stay with other farmers along the way. They took their tractor through Tim Hortons drive-throughs and drove on the highway as a street-legal vehicle.
“We are looking forward to seeing the country,” Henk Schuurmans said in an interview on June 22, the day they left Elmira.
Travelling by tractor was a natural choice for the trip, he said. They had hoped to do the eastern leg to Halifax this fall, in time for the wedding of one of their sons.
“We decided biking is not good for our bodies, at our age. The car is kind of boring and motorcycle is not our thing,” Henk explained. “So we said, ‘We’re farmers. Why not by tractor?’”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help cover funeral and other costs for the family.