Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Hay River (Aug 28/00) - Take a summer of bright sunshine, add a little rain, and you have the ingredients for a fierce competition among pumpkin growers in the South Slave.

A new leader in the contest may have emerged in Hay River.

Dean McMeekin, the stores person at Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, believes he has a contender.

Two weeks ago, McMeekin's great gourd weighed in at just over 100 pounds and then it outgrew the bathroom scale.

"They are gaining anywhere from five to 10 pounds per day, depending on conditions," McMeekin said.

The contest began five years ago as a tribute to an old friend and co-worker from Fort Smith.

"When Don Boxer passed away, Bob McLeod -- now deputy minister of RWED -- made sure they mailed out pumpkin seeds to all the officers within RWED, to grow pumpkins in Don's honour," he said.

"We just kinda took it from there and continued it on."

Hay River's pumpkin guru, Al Halmer has won the contest twice and is running a close second in the Hay River pumpkin patch.

"The first time it was about 80 pounds and the second time was about two years ago and it was about 187 pounds," he said.

Other winners have included Fort Smith's Berny Bergman and last year, Horace Cairns, who cultivated a 200 pounder last year.

"We can't have that," Halmer smiled. "We can't have Fort Smith beating Hay River."

Halmer said the Fort Liard office has had contenders. Yellowknife has tried and failed due to a short growing season.

The secret to good growing is an early start.

"I start the seeds about the first week of April under grow lights in the house," he said.

"From there, they get transferred into the greenhouse once it warms up a bit."

He says he starts a bit early with a heater in the greenhouse to warm the cool evenings and early spring mornings.

Once the weather has warmed and the danger of the last frost has past, everyone at the RWED office gets to draw to determine who gets which pumpkin plant.

Hay River had a killer frost about the 15th of June. The team had to start all over, and luckily, Halmer had enough plants left in the greenhouse to keep the team in the race.

The contest lasts as long as the season.

"We cheat Mother Nature as much as we can," he said. "We cover them with plastic and make little greenhouses."

The pumpkins and the competition provides the RWED crews a bit of a diversion as well as a tribute to an old friend.

"It's a staff morale thing; it's something other than thinking about work all the time," he said.