‘Unbelievable entertainment’: Engines fall silent at Manitoba’s longest-running tractor pull

A crowd turns out for the Teulon International Truck and Tractor Pull in Teulon, Man., in 2012. Founded in 1972, the event was Manitoba's longest-running tractor pull, according to longtime organizer Bert Campbell. (YouTube/thetxman)

What began as a friendly competition among Manitoba Interlake farmers testing the strength of their rigs grew into an annual spectacle that drew thousands of spectators. Now, after more than 50 years, the tradition has come to an end.

Bert Campbell, 76, a longtime organizer of the Teulon International Truck and Tractor Pull, confirmed the event has reached the end of its run, pointing to rising insurance costs and increasing regulatory burdens as key factors behind the decision.

The lifelong resident of Teulon, approximately 50 kilometres north of Winnipeg, said the event required an additional level of liability insurance as well as hundreds of feet of barriers and a chain-link fence in the pit area.

“There were too many things you had to do to make it right,” said Campbell, who noted the event generates only a few thousand dollars in revenue each year, which is donated to several local organizations. He added that no one was willing to take over organizing duties, despite a strong volunteer turnout on the day of the pull.

“It got to be a real trying thing to do all the logistics of it beforehand,” he said.

Campbell said the summer event has been held annually since 1972 at the town’s rodeo grounds, pausing for three years during the pandemic, which prevented U.S. participants from bringing their rigs across the border.

“It just started with a bunch of farmers, and there were some businessmen involved. It was just a matter of putting tractors out on the track—just regular farm tractors, and they have a couple of antiques—and they just wanted to see who could have a stronger unit,” he said.

Campbell, who served as the town’s mayor from 2002 to 2018, said he initially began helping with the event around 1975 or ’76, before becoming the announcer and serving on the organizing committee.

In the early days, tractors pulled stone boats — large pieces of steel with a hitch that farmers used in their fields to collect rocks. People would step on it every few feet to add weight, and the tractor that pulled the farthest won.

Campbell said the event grew so popular that organizers built a pulling sled—a movable weight-transfer system—which also travelled to other southern Manitoba communities for pulls, such as in Killarney, Pilot Mound and Gretna.

“This was to do it in a more mechanized, safer fashion, and that’s when guys started building modified tractors,” Campbell said, noting modified tractors began being built in Teulon in the 1970s. “Then tractors got to be way too big for it.”

Self-propelled weight-transfer sleds were later introduced, allowing them to easily reset between pulls.

In its later years, the two-day event drew crowds of between 2,500 and 3,000 people, with four-and-a-half-hour shows each day. The pull was part of the Red River Valley Pullers Association, a league made up of communities from Manitoba, North Dakota and Minnesota.

Admission was pegged at $15 for many years before going up to $20, Campbell said, though fewer people came after the price increase.

“We had trophies and plaques and everything, but those guys had so much of that stuff, they didn’t care if they got plaques and trophies — they just wanted to pull,” he said.

He said the pull would average between 30 and 45 pulling vehicles — modified trucks and tractors — with about two-thirds of participants coming from south of the border in recent years.

Campbell said the spectacle turned out to be the longest-running tractor pull in the province—and for some years, the only pull competition in the province.

“It’s different entertainment than we ever had in Teulon of any other sort,” he said.

As for the most powerful entry in the pull’s history, Campbell said a Melita dealer’s tractor — nicknamed the “Randy Canadian” — was fitted with two V12 aircraft engines producing 6,500 horsepower, more than a standard locomotive.

“It grew in prominence a lot over the years, and we tried a lot of different things,” he said.

“We had a horse bowl, and we had combine crunch, we had demolition derby, and we used to have dances in the arena and with food —talk about an organizational headache and nightmare— but we did it all … and then we just got back to just doing truck and tractor pull.”

“It provided unbelievable entertainment for those that came,” Campbell said. “They were unbelievable fans.”