All in the Family

One hundred years and four generations—that’s how long one farm in the Thunder Bay area has been in the same family, and earlier this year, it was honoured with a province-wide designation as an Ontario Century Farm for the
achievement.

Peggy Blekkenhorst grew up on the farm in Gillies, which is now owned by her niece Nicole Pitton. The farm received the Century Farm designation this fall from the Junior Farmers Association of Ontario, a youth leadership development
organization that primarily focuses on rural communities. A Century Farm is one that has been in the same family for 100 years or more. Blekkenhorst, who has been researching her family’s history, says these days the farm produces hay, and Pitton also does some hobby farming with the property, raising animals like horses, cows, and chickens (Pitton sells the eggs). Blekkenhorst says that’s significant, as over the decades, the land has been used, at various times and by various generations, for all of those agricultural activities, effectively bringing the farm’s history full circle leading into its century year. “She has the horses like her great-grandfather, she has the eggs like her great-grandmother and her grandmother, and she takes the hay off the fields like her grandfather,” Blekkenhorst says. “And she has beef [cows] from her uncle.”

Blekkenhorst says the farm’s history dates back to the early 20th century, but was purchased by her Ukrainian immigrant grandparents Peter and Mary Cicinski in 1923, a little over 15 years after they moved to Canada. The eldest Cicinskis left Ukraine “because, staying in […] Ukraine, they would never have the opportunity to own a farm,” Blekkenhorst says. “To own a farm for the family, for my grandparents, was a really big deal.” The first generation primarily produced crops like hay and oats, as well as root vegetables. Mary Cicinski also sold eggs and they had a dairy operation. “It was very labour intensive,” Blekkenhorst says, as this was before the widespread mechanization of agriculture, meaning labour was predominantly performed by people and animals.

Blekkenhorst’s parents Paul and Olga Cicinski took ownership of the farm in 1961, around which time they would go into dairy farming full time (although Blekkenhorst says her mother continued to raise chickens for eggs for the family), embracing the leaps in technology that era brought. The barn was renovated to bring it up to then-modern standards, milking machines were installed, and large-scale refrigeration infrastructure was added. “You could increase your herd from two or three cows—my parents usually had 24 to 25 milk cows,” she says. “That was enough to support […] our family.”

The third generation to work the land was Blekkenhorst’s brother Peter Cicinski, who was named after his grandfather. He continued running the dairy operation until 2000, when she says he retooled the business to focus on beef farming, fully taking ownership in 2004. “At that time, a lot of the […] dairy farms in Gillies were leaving dairy,” Blekkenhorst says. “And I believe my brother was one of the last dairy farmers in the township.” The younger Peter Cicinski would operate the farm as a beef operation until his death in 2021, when Pitton took it over. The family sold the beef cows (except for one and her calf) and Pitton now runs it for the variety of uses it has
to this day.

Blekkenhorst says celebrating the area’s agricultural history and highlighting the versatility farming requires is important, adding that breadth of knowledge includes being up on the latest technology, knowing how to maintain and repair equipment, caring for large animals, having business and accounting knowledge, being a salesperson, and more. “In reality, to be a farmer, you have to be a jack of all trades, almost,” she says.