Western Irrigation District Memories – Vern Hoff

By John Godsman Times Contributor

The family name Hoff originated in Germany in 1450. Vern’s dad Adolf was born in 1906, in Gluckstadt, Germany and was the first of the family to move to Canada, in 1923.
Vern’s mother May Kirstein was born in Gleichen. Her family originated in Posen, Germany, and started homesteading in the Gleichen/Cluny area in 1901.
Adolf went on a tour of California in 1926 and visited the Imperial Valley where he got his first glimpse of the advantages of flood irrigation. He was permanently impressed and on returning to Canada, started digging ditches to irrigate his first crop the following year. In 1927, irrigation was provided by gravity and as a result of the results achieved, the Hoff family has been irrigating ever since.
Vern was born in 1932 in Cluny. He married Jo Clandfield from Calgary in 1956. She was a wonderful farm wife, who sadly passed away in 2013.
Between 1927 and 1946, flood irrigation was replaced by hand moves and then wheel moves when pumps were introduced. What a change this made, as now one could actually pump water uphill.
Vern started irrigating in 1961, using hand moves and flood irrigation on levelled land. He brought the first pivot into the Western Irrigation District in 1969. It was a very dry year, but with this new equipment, he paid for it in one season, growing peas. During the growing season, he moved the pivot to three different locations. A lot of hard work, because everything had to be moved manually, including the main line and kill wire.
Vern remembers a farmer moving a pivot across Highway 817 and stopping traffic both ways for 15 minutes. This was in the days of water drive pivots, but nowadays they are run by electric power, which permits lower pressure and more efficient water use.
Vern served on the Western Irrigation District board from 1980 to 1994, then from 1995 to 2010 he served as chair of the Alberta Irrigation Council. He stated that irrigation has a fantastic future, for food and animal production. With climate change, irrigation will be needed more than ever.