I came across this old 1955 video* of potato harvesting in the Grand Falls region of Victoria County, New Brunswick. It looks like things hadn't changed so much since the 1930s and 1940s--not so long after my mother would have taken part in the harvests in Beaconsfield, just a 40 minute drive by car today.
Here is a comment on this YouTube video: I remember my grandfather working like this. All the neighbouring families came to help harvest, and then helped the next neighbour, and so on.
Hard work. Bending over all day. I remember very sore backs, and very dry hands.
For contrast, here is a more modern approach to potato harvesting, this time just across the border in Aroostook County, Maine, where the Crabtree family also lived.
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* Thanks to Wayne DeLong of the Facebook group, Carleton County Genealogy and Family Trees, for sharing the first video.
Ouch, my back hurts just watching the first video! What hard work!
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