Cattle Haul

This September 1949 photograph shows my father, Donald McAlpine, at age twenty-two showing off a prized Holstein Friesian heifer in the belly of a war-surplus Curtiss C-46 cargo plane destined for Cuba from Toronto. The animal pictured is the granddaughter of the famous bull Marksman and was one of six heifers shipped to the president of Cuba. The Cuban minister of agriculture had selected the cattle earlier that year during his visit to the Canadian International Trade Fair in Toronto.

While trade relations between Canada and Cuba date back to the eighteenth century, formal diplomatic relations were not established until 1945. Thereafter, trade expanded — and diplomatic relations were maintained even after the Cuban Revolution in 1959 — with the Cubans being particularly keen to gain access to Canadian agricultural technology.

The six chosen heifers were from Hays Farms International in Oakville, Ontario, which gained a worldwide reputation as a dealer and exporter of Canadian purebred livestock to more than twenty countries in the postwar period. The business was started by Harry Hays — later Canadian minister of agriculture, before becoming a senator — and his brother Tom.

In 1949 my father was a student at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ontario. Having grown up during the Depression on a farm in Dutton, Ontario, my father found it pretty exciting to transport cattle for Hays to exotic destinations like Cuba, Mexico, and Bermuda. He had endless stories about those rail and plane trips, including various mid-air mishaps and cross-cultural misunderstandings.

The job also yielded other benefits: He started dating the office secretary at Hays Farms, ultimately marrying my mother in 1953. My father died earlier this year at age ninety-six.