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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Itchin' for a soft touch

Interlake sheep yield finest wool

By: Bill Redekop

Posted: 04/27/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Kim Streker operates an integrated sheep farm and wool-processing mill at Inwood. (JOE BRYKSA/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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Joe Streker moved to the Interlake to set up a sheep farm. (JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS )

INWOOD -- Joe and Kim Streker sure know how to spin a good yarn.

Like the yarn about how they ditched good-paying jobs as Ontario college instructors to become sheep farmers and wool millers in Manitoba's Interlake.

Good one, Joe and Kim. And it's all true. The Strekers operate Sheeples Fine Fibres, a throwback to another era -- an integrated sheep farm and wool-processing mill that disappeared eons ago.

Not only that -- the Strekers spin the finest wool imaginable. Their spun yarn is so fine and lofty you can't even feel it touching your skin. That's the idea, says Joe, who taught industrial automation at Niagara College before buying a farm here in 2006.

"We've had to deprogram everybody -- wool is not itchy," he says.

That is the experience of most people in Canada where wool sweaters are "like wearing a Brillo pad. People were not used to wool being soft," Joe says.

That's because sheep in Canada are raised primarily for meat and their wool is a byproduct. And that's the itchy stuff, containing a much coarser fibre.

The Strekers raise sheep bred for their fleece. They raise primarily Merino, a breed originating in Spain.

(There's nothing wrong with the meat from the Strekers' sheep either. It's just that the lambs don't grow as fast and that's not the economics of production that today's industry demands.)

But there's another key ingredient to their soft wool: Manitoba's dry cold. Our winters happen to produce the finest quality fleece on sheep.

"We had good-quality wool in Ontario. But when we came here? The quality of the wool blew the doors off anything from Ontario," Joe says.

Kim and Joe bought their farm after scouring Canada. Once they decided on Manitoba, they visited 35 farms before settling on the one near Inwood, about 65 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

They left good jobs in Ontario -- Kim taught computer software -- because farming had always been their dream. They both grew up on farms. They managed a farm south of Hamilton, while working their day jobs with the goal to farm full-time one day. But land prices in Ontario kept getting further out of their reach. It helped that they could farm land in the Interlake for about $350 an acre, versus the $5,000 to $6,000 for farmland back home.

Why sheep?

"I'd been cash-cropping for 25 years and I never seemed to be getting anywhere. There were either pathetic prices or I'd get crucified on yield," Joe says.

They did their market research and saw potential in the high-end wool market. Also, Kim is a knitter. So began Sheeples, a combination of words 'sheep' and 'people,' and designating sheep who think they're people, which is most of their flock.

It's not tough to see why. Kim has names for most of their 250 sheep. There are Rambo, Lola, Honey Bear, Rags, Curly Sue (because her wool grows in ringlets) and Roo (because it hops around like the Pooh character).

They crossbreed to get different characteristics. For example, they have crossbred to make fleece longer. They have sheep with fleece 12 inches long.

Wool mills have largely disappeared in North America. China is the world's biggest wool processor.

The Strekers' market is high-end knitters. They've already sold all of last year's production and are expanding their flock up to 1,200 sheep.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 27, 2009 A7

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