James Johnson and his wife have been bringing their Nova Scotia fir trees to Lethbridge for 21 years.
It’s the popular demand that keeps them coming back.
“I guess it all started when a friend of mine moved out here from Nova Scotia and I was talking to him that fall and he said there was no good Christmas trees out here. We met up with him, drove around found a spot, brought a load of trees out and sold out,” said Johnson, owner of Timberland Farms.
The trees make their journey across country by rail, but the work starts long before they are loaded up. It takes about eight years to grow one six-foot tree.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into them. They all have to be spaced out about six or eight feet apart, they are all clipped every year and federalized, that’s what makes them fill in all nice and bushy.”
Johnson added it’s not just the booming business that keeps him coming back to Lethbridge, it’s the friendly southern Albertans he’s met along the way.
“Once we started the tree lot and got it established, it kept us coming I guess. We’ve met a lot of nice people here. I’m a farmer myself so I get to talk to a lot of the farmers and ranchers. I sometimes go to the cattle auctions, because I got to know Tony and Joe Perlich, from Perlich Auction pretty well. They came in to buy a tree years ago.”
Those repeat customers are cashing in on what Nova Scotia is best known for.
“It’s called the Christmas tree capital of the world. There’s a lot of Christmas trees that come out of Nova Scotia, I think about 40 million trees a year.”
About 800 of those are sold in Lethbridge by Timberland Farms.
Johnson added no matter how old he gets, the fir trees will be making the trip across Canada for years to come.
“If I don’t, some of my family will.”