We are not in Kansas.
The Term, Western, Northwestern and the Far North Means Excitement and The Pioneer Criteria.
North of the Glaciers of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, 1,000 miles North of Spokane to Manning Alberta.

Following Hwy 93 through the Columbia Ice Field to Jasper and on to Grand Prairie, Alberta. The distance is 600 miles north of the Kingsgate, Idaho, The Idaho border crossing, north and east of Spokane and on the edge of the Mountain time zone is Grand Prairie, Alberta.

Hawk Hills is another 3 hours north or about 200 more miles to the Ken Dechant farm.

At Grand Prairie, Alberta, The Brazil of the North…The Land of tall trees, Coal, and Open Pit Mining, Oil and Gas, Lumber and Pulp, Railroads and Giant grain farms, 15,000 to 35,000 acres. A new Dam on the Peace at Fort St. John.

The Highways have big names. The Edmonton Expressway is a fancy, wide berth, four lane super highway all the way to Edmonton going through the 100 foot trees of The Boreal Forrest.

From Grand Prairie it is 7 hours away to Edmonton. Which is like going to Palm Springs when it is -40.F.

The Little Edmonton of the North, is Grand Prairie. If you come from Calgary you had better hide that fact, these producers are “Oilers”.

Go for Gold, Jump off point to Dawson City, 2,200 KM away. Canada, Western Canada is “The Land of Big Thinking.”

Big and Little Trucks.

Hauling 1267, crude oil from the wellhead , KW Cat, Tridem Power Axles, 3 power axles for those that want to know, 7 total axles, 122,000 lbs. 600 hp Cat.

This is an average truck and must be used for tight quarters, 8 axle Super B is real common with twin 9,000 gallon barrels…

Up to 12 axles for machinery hauls with 8 axle super Bees for Grain at 122,000…at 155,000 to 225,000 for heavy haulers moving drilling equipment with special permits.

Rocky Mountain Doubles and Super B’s are 900 hp Cummins.

Look at the Tridem Tires, traction Only, and in really good shape. Tires just melt away and at 50% rubber depth the used tires are takeoffs.

No such thing as an F-150 at Grand Prairie, that would be an engineering afterthought. Even the boss agrees, I will drive the biggest and the best.

Everything is new, and the Old Pickup truck is 5 to 7 years of age and off the depreciation schedule.

Little Trucks start at F-350 size. Little Big Truck are full deck with protection from the wildlife. Set up with the cold weather package and burning winter diesel now.

The dealerships have very few cars for sale, and sell and service trucks from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM.

Grand Prairie is 56 degrees North at 2,500 feet and roads go to 5,000 feet towards Grand Cache and Hinton. The light of the operating day is about 8:00 AM at Grand Prairie.

Ken Dechant at Hawk Hills and the Peace River, 1,500 feet elevation at KD Farms, (Peace River at 850 feet). The Peace flows to the artic.

At 225 miles north to Hawk Hills from Grand Prairie. The Longitude is 58 degrees North, the Light of the operating day is 9:00 AM on October 18, 2017.

Northwest Territories starts at 60 degrees North and another 165 miles north. Land of the Polar Bears and big mines, even diamonds.

Exactrix Mustang, 61.25 feet, Exactrix 2KC Series 3, 2KM Series 3 and 2KR blender, Three Product blending with advanced control from Deere Series 4000 series. Fall Banding at Grand Prairie.

625 hp…high performance Delta Track, Versatile. Deere Auto Steer under a state of adjustment in the transition mode.

Mustangs operating in Gumbo Clay….an old lake bed of the present Bear Lake. Located in sight of Grand Prairie. Tobin Dirks and Robin McKeeman take on the Canola field on Oct. 20, 2017.

Tracks are important in Gumbo, Wet Clay. The machine did a fine job, some improvements always in the first 50 hours.

Blaine Richter of CPS, Sexsmith, Alberta, starting out a custom application program with Exactrix TAPPS.

This is highly productive land with OM starting at 6% and long term No-tillage at 9% to 10%.

Does not take much to raise a good crop. TAPPS Formulator. Exactrix Mustang Banding.

Tracks are working well.
Big loads at 90,000 lbs.

4 section design.
15 inch band centers.

Place Your Bets, tighten your seat belt. It is snowy and slick.

Going over the Columbia Icefield on 93.
Nobody is out there.
The big tourist attraction of Canada, and rightly so.

The Athabasca pass is 6,800 feet, actually the Bow Pass is a little bit higher at 6, 850.
 About 9:00 AM and 2 hours south of Jasper. The rivers leave the mountains at about 3,200 feet. The peaks go to about 11,000.

The Columbia Icefield feeds the Columbia River, The Athabasca River and The Saskatchewan River.
Howse Pass is just to the south where David Thompson crossed over into the Columbian River Basin in 1806.
The Bow River starts in its own Glacial field about 60 miles further south and close to Lake Louise.

Kootenay Range, Mt Wardle.

Big Fires this year in British Columbia took a massive toll on the timberlands and the habitat. The fires were hot.

Google earth says that Mt. Wardle in the Kootenay range is 5,200 feet, about 1 mile, up from my camera on the Kootenay River. About 9,200 feet and the river is 3,924.

How wide is a line of latitude or a Parallel?

About 69.43 miles, just under 70 miles, or 111.132 KM.

KD is 58 degrees, GJS is 48 degrees roughly. That is about 700 miles by the Canadian Goose if we set a vector.

The earth is not flat and it is not round either.

The distances of Longitude lines vary a small amount.

That means as you go further north each degree has a little more distance.

Between 30 degrees North and 60 degrees North the width of the latitude increases about ½ per cent.

A parallel width is 110.852 KM is 30 degrees at Austin, Texas. The parallel width increases at 60 degrees North. Manning Alberta is 58 degrees North. Thus a line of Longitude or a Parallel is .56 KM wider.

So traveling at 110 KM/hour it will take more time by 33 seconds to get across a parallel at 58 degrees North as compared to traveling from Austin Texas at 30 degrees towards Killen, Fort Hood Texas at 31 degrees,  from 30 to 31 degrees it does not take as long by 33 seconds as compared.

From Austin to Hawk Hills, Ken Dechant, about 1950 miles by the vector.

The evaluation of the meridian distance integral is central to many studies in geodesy and map projection. It can be evaluated by expanding the integral by the binomial series and integrating term by term: see Meridian arc for details. The length of the meridian arc between two given latitudes is given by replacing the limits of the integral by the latitudes concerned. The length of a small meridian arc is given by^[4][5]
δ m ( ϕ ) = M ( ϕ ) δ ϕ = a ( 1 − e 2 ) ( 1 − e 2 sin 2 ⁡ ϕ ) − 3 2 δ ϕ {\displaystyle \delta m(\phi )=M(\phi )\,\delta \phi =a(1-e^{2})\left(1-e^{2}\sin ^{2}\phi \right)^{-{\frac {3}{2}}}\,\delta \phi }

When the latitude difference is 1 degree, corresponding to π/180 radians, the arc distance is about

Δ l a t 1 = π a ( 1 − e 2 ) 180 ∘ ( 1 − e 2 sin 2 ⁡ ϕ ) 3 2 {\displaystyle \Delta _{\mathrm {lat} }^{1}={\frac {\pi a\left(1-e^{2}\right)}{180^{\circ }\left(1-e^{2}\sin ^{2}\phi \right)^{\frac {3}{2}}}}}

The distance in metres (correct to 0.01 metre) between latitudes ϕ {\displaystyle \phi }  − 0.5 degrees and ϕ {\displaystyle \phi }  + 0.5 degrees on the WGS84 spheroid is

Δ l a t 1 = 111 132.954 − 559.822 cos ⁡ 2 ϕ + 1.175 cos ⁡ 4 ϕ {\displaystyle \Delta _{\mathrm {lat} }^{1}=111\,132.954-559.822\cos 2\phi +1.175\cos 4\phi }

The variation of this distance with latitude (on WGS84) is shown in the table along with the length of a degree of longitude (east-west distance):

Δ l o n g 1 = π a cos ⁡ ϕ 180 ∘ 1 − e 2 sin 2 ⁡ ϕ {\displaystyle \Delta _{\mathrm {long} }^{1}={\frac {\pi a\cos \phi }{180^{\circ }{\sqrt {1-e^{2}\sin ^{2}\phi }}}}\,}

A calculator for any latitude is provided by the U.S. Government's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).^[6]

Historically a nautical mile was defined as the length of one minute of arc along a meridian of a spherical earth. An ellipsoid model leads to a variation of the nautical mile with latitude. This was resolved by defining the nautical mile to be exactly 1,852 metres.

Your Great Northern Reporter.
GJS