Article written by Teresa Pitman and featured in At Guelph.
First-year commerce student Carrie Davenport started driving a tractor on her parents’ farm when she was seven years old. Before long, she was pulling a plow behind it and taking the first steps to following in a family tradition. Her grandfather had been an avid competitor in plowing competitions, and the skills had been passed on through the generations from parent to son.
In this generation, though, something changed: the girls also learned to plow. Davenport, her brother and her two sisters were all coached in the competitive techniques by their father. Davenport became increasingly involved in plowing matches – so involved that in the spring of 2012, she won the Canadian Plowing Championship for her age group (junior) and became the first woman to earn that title.
What happens in a plowing match? It’s tougher than you might think, says Davenport. You don’t just get to randomly dig up a field. The competitors need to plow according to prescribed patterns, and are judged on straightness, accuracy and other factors. Everything needs to be accomplished within the allotted times as well.
“You have 20 minutes to complete your open split,” she explains. That involves plowing one straight line down and one back. Then each competitor completes another detailed pattern of plowing, ending with the tractor tire wheels precisely placed on top of the next competitor’s land.
Accomplishing this takes considerable concentration. “You are by yourself on the tractor for about two and a half hours, not talking to anyone, really competing with yourself,” says Davenport. “When I’m out there, I’m very focused and constantly correcting myself.”
In 2011, Davenport competed in several small plowing matches around Ontario to help her prepare for the provincial championships. Only those who win first or second in their provincial-level matches are eligible to compete in the Canadian championship. After winning many local events Davenport placed first for Ontario, and that qualified her to head to Brandon, Man., for the national event this past October.
Plowing in Manitoba had a few extra challenges. “The first day of competition, the temperature was 10 below,” she says. “On practice day I got wind-burn, so during the actual competition I wore a balaclava – I could barely see out of the eye holes.” The soil was also quite different from anything she’d encountered in Ontario. “It was so hard, almost like trying to turn over rock. The adjustments I was making in Ontario weren’t working – I really felt out of my element.”
Despite those challenges, when the scorecards were tallied, Davenport was the winner.
How did the men she beat in this event react? “This is a very male-oriented sport,” acknowledges Davenport. “There are not many girls or women involved in any part of it, although there are women on the organizing committees. In six solid years of competing, I’ve only competed against three or four other girls. But the men treat me the same as anyone else, and the women are excited to see a woman do well. I get a lot of ‘you go, girl’ comments.” Davenport hopes to get more girls and women interested in the sport; she and her father run a 4H Sodbusters Club and have several girls participating.
She plans to continue digging those furrows: “The plowing community is unbelievable, they are great people. It’s also a bonding thing for me and my dad, hanging out at the plowing match all day.” Since Davenport won the Ontario championship again this year, she will defend her title at the nationals in B.C. in April 2013. That will mark her final year of competing as a junior, but she’ll be showing what she can do in the senior classes after that.
“There are no women at all in the senior-level competitions at the provincial or national level,” Davenport adds. “Plus, I’ll be competing against my dad and that should be interesting. I have beaten him a couple of times in small local matches where all ages compete together. But he’s always teaching me something new.”
