size="2"> For almost 40 years, harvest excursions were organized in Eastern Canada to assist prairie farmers with the grain harvest. Thousands of men and women were recruited, no experience necessary, and transported out west to work in the fields, to ensure that Canada maintained its reputation as the breadbasket of the world. The excursions were a huge undertaking and were absolutely critical for a successful harvest.First conceived by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1890, the annual harvest excursion quickly became a popular tradition, a tradition that contributed in no small way to the significance of the wheat economy to the western prairies and to the country at large. Harvest of the wheat crop wa...

Showy Lady's Slipper orchids add light and beauty to the Purdon Conservation Area near Ottawa. You have to wonder what Joe Purdon would have thought as a hot pink tour bus comes crunching in off Concession Road 8 in Lanark, Ont., shattering the morning quiet of the old woodlot. The emerging visitors--some two dozen garden club members toting cameras, hats and bug spray--chat enthusiastically as they head for the wooden hut that houses a humble one-seater. Welcome to Purdon Conservation Area, 25 hectares of former farmland and swampy woods located 75 kilometres southwest of Ottawa. A posted sign implores: "Please stay on the boardwalk trail" and "Do not pick the flowers," referring to a vast co...