Town of Picture Butte honours “a legacy of hope and hard work”

Advance Photo by Kristine Jean. UNVEILLED: Picture Butte Mayor Cathy Moore (left) and Yves Leclair with the Prairie Tractor and Engine Museum Society (right) stand next to the new sign recognizing the significant contributions of the sugar beet industry in Picture Butte after it was recently unveiled in a special ceremony.

By Kristine Jean
Southern Alberta Newspapers

The Town of Picture Butte honoured an important part of its history with a new sign, recently unveiled in a special ceremony. 

The sign was created to preserve, honour and share the history of the sugar beet industry and its lasting impact in Picture Butte and across the region.  

Yves Leclair, with the Prairie Tractor and Engine Museum Society and a committee member, designated to create the sign commemorating the sugar beet industry in Picture Butte, shared a few words with the crowd gathered prior to the sign’s unveiling.   

“It provides the history (of the sugar beet industry) because a lot of younger people don’t even know how Picture Butte ever started,” said Leclair, noting they also created a sugar beet display in its own building at the Coyote Flats Pioneer Village. 

Picture Butte Mayor Cathy Moore said the town was pleased to honour the sugar beet industry and its farmers, who played an important role in the town’s history. 

“The sugar beet industry is what brought everybody to this town. That’s what established Picture Butte,” said Moore, noting some of the old brick houses on 3rd Street, that are still standing housed some of the first sugar beet farmers that came to the area.

Leclair pointed out it is the second sign on display in town, with the first one, also located outside the North County Recreation Complex, installed two years ago. It shares the history of the Picture Butte Tractor Club, its location, along with a QR code that provides information on activities at Coyote Flats Pioneer Village during the year. 

The sugar beet industry sign also has a QR code that will eventually provide information and stories from sugar beet farmers across the region, noted Leclair.  

“You will hear the stories of different people with their experiences in the sugar beet industry,” he said, noting several individuals he spoke with for the project. “I went from individual to individual and I was able to have them provide me with a little story.”

This year marks a special milestone for the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers Association, as they celebrate their centennial – 100 years in the province. Several sugar beet farmers were in attendance for the sign unveiling.  

“I think it’s great to have that (sign). This is what built this town way back when,” Hank Bergen-Henengouwen, a sugar beet farmer who was born and raised just north of Picture Butte. “It’s really nice that they put that together for people to look back on and see what made this town.”  

A member of the Lethbridge Northern Sugar Beet Growers, his family owned and operated farm has been growing sugar beets in the Picture Butte area since his father bought it in 1965. With the exception of one year in 1985, they have grown sugar beets ever since. 

Bergen-Henengouwen noted some challenges with being a sugar beet farmer over the years, as well as several changes in the industry including greater varieties of sugar beets and greater yields from farms across southern Alberta, that span from Picture Butte to east of Taber. 

“The only factory left now is in Taber,” said Bergen-Henengouwen. “(Beets) are piled here and then they’re shipped to Taber throughout the winter for processing.”

All beets grown in Southern Alberta today are used in refined white sugar, he noted, adding that Alberta only produces a small portion of what’s consumed in Canada, about 10 per cent. 

“It’d be nice to see this (industry) carry on for another 100 years, you never know,” said Bergen-Henengouwen.