This August, the Canadian Plowing Championship was held in Wolfe Island, ON as part of the Canadian Plowing Organization's effort to preserve the art of competitive plowing.

Each competitor had to plow a half-acre piece of land and was not allowed to use any type of GPS or electronic device to control plow or tractor settings.

William Dunlop, originally from Scotland, now lives in Brandon, and was one of only two Manitoban competitors at the event. The 72-year-old did well, placing sixth in the competition, but says plowing is becoming a lost art in Manitoba.

"I think especially in Manitoba where there is virtually zero till these days, nobody plows anymore, so really nobody knows what plowing is," he says. "It's never going to get any more. The next generation of farmers, they don't really know anything about plowing at all."

Dunlop says for him, plowing was just a natural inclination. He did a bit of plowing when he lived in Scotland before moving to dairy farm in Canada, but didn't get into competitive plowing until after he'd retired from farming.

"You have to be able to drive very straight," he says, "you don't have GPS to help you these days, either."

Dunlop says other areas of Canada have a stronger plowing presence, which was reflected somewhat in registration. The second and third place winners in the conventional plowing class were Ontarians; two of three competitors in reversible plowing were Ontarians; and the only competitors in the junior category were from Ontario. Dunlop says there are many more opportunities for plowing matches in Ontario than Manitoba.

"There's virtually a plowing match in each county in Ontario, so you could go to 25 plowing matches in a season quite easily, but out here we're doing quite well to get two plowing matches in a year," he says. "I think that's part of the trouble. We never get enough practice."

With this year's competition as more practice for Dunlop, he says he's been getting better. But the highlight of competing wasn't his score or placing. It was the comaradie between competitors.

"Everybody was very friendly," he says. "I've made lots of friends that I wouldn't have otherwise, so it really is good from that point of view. And you see things in Canada you never saw before, so from that angle it's been good."

The World Plowing Championship will be held in Denmark this October.