Twin City 20-35 "Canadian"

[Eric Best]

Hadn't heard the term "skinner" before. Nice to know! In a related matter, when I was growing up around this stuff, folks in my area (Missouri at the time) called lever style load binders, "boomers". Years later, I moved to northwest Indiana. While on a tractor expedition, I asked a friend, an Indiana native, to hand me a boomer and he said, "a what??"

[Phil Johnson]

Mark, the term I used for the cheater was a "snipe", not "skinner". That's what we called them when I worked in oilfield work. Although skinner might be appropriate at times, if you pull that thing down real hard and it gets away it can sometimes remove a little skin!!

The lever type load binder is a "boomer" in this area also.

[Oilpulled]

Boomer in Western Illinois too.

[m jorstad]

boomer in western north dakota also

[Russ Hamm]

Chain binder here at the truck shop.

[Mark Schneider]

Originally Posted by Phil Johnson

Mark, the term I used for the cheater was a "snipe", not "skinner".

Boy my memory is really getting bad! I needed to take a peek out the window to make sure I had actually hauled the right tractor home!

It was all chains, binders, and cheater pipes in my sphere of reference. Phil's snipe worked better than my pipe so when I got home I chucked my cheater pipe into the scrap bin and made myself one similar to Phil's. Does being south of the border make this a "cheater snipe"?

The Reynolds Museum was a little over a 1/2 hour from Camrose so we spotted the trailer in the motel parking lot and spent most of Saturday touring the Museum. I had wanted to see this Museum for long time. We got there plenty early and were the only ones in the parking lot for awhile.
Plenty of great displays and it was well worth the time spent to see them. Very well laid out. I would have liked to have seen their storage facility as there was plenty of old iron parked behind the gate. I inquired about it but was informed that limited tours of that facility wouldn't start until July.
So I had to be content to see what I could see through the fence.

Sat evening at the motel I got a phone call from an older fellow who wanted to sell a tractor. He had seen the Twin City parked in the lot and wanted to know if I was interested in buying an Oil Pull also. He didn't remember the model number. I was in no position to buy so I passed on it.

Here are a few photos taken at the Reynolds Museum.

[Phil Johnson]

That '35 Maple Leaf is a nice truck. They were an up market Canadian version of a Chevrolet (which we also had). They had a lot more chrome trim, woodgrain dash board, and leather upholstery on the seat. I've had a couple in the past. Last one was a '35, same as the Reynold's truck. I sold it to Canada Dry in Toronto many years ago as they wanted it to restore as one of their pop bottle delivery trucks. Apparently they had a fleet of those Maple Leaf's back in the '30's.

Mine had a winch and gin poles and was pretty handy around the place for heavy lifts!

[Mark Schneider]

Phil...Do you know if the Maple Leaf trucks were built that way by Chevrolet or were they customized by another outfit? My wife thought the Maple Leaf logo was very nicely done.

So when we got to the pickup early Sunday morning there was a note on the door asking if I would be interested in buying a Case "D" tractor! We pulled out of Camrose at 6:15 in the rain which was a good thing for the heavily loaded tires and a bad thing for the trailer as I lost 1/2 my marker lights not too far from Camrose. We headed across country on the secondary roads toward Moose Jaw. First fuel stop was at Kindersley. It was raining hard there and I pulled into a big COOP station that had a roof. There was no attendant on duty Sunday morning and we could not get the card to work. Was glad for the supply in the service tank! Drove in the rain until Elbow SK on good ol' Highway 19 which was one of the roughest stretches of blacktop I've been on in a long time...many miles driven in 4th gear. If ever a road would loosen a load this would be the one! Went through Moose Jaw and put the last of the service tank fuel in the Dodge at Yellow Grass. When we got to Estevan HWY 39 heads to Portal. We turned off 39 and headed for the Estevan Port of Entry which was on another stretch of 4th gear road because of the grade and curves. Almost no traffic on this stretch. The lady at the crossing took our Passports and checked them out. Then she asked for the bill of sale for the load. She looks it over and says "You paid that much for that thing?". So she looks at the load again and then says "Doesn't John already have one of these?" I said "Beg your pardon?" She asked me the same thing again and by this time I know she is probably talking about John Tysee Jr. I said "I'm not sure". From there the conversation shifted to " where are you from etc." Discovered that we were both from MN, that we both had brothers in Thief River Falls MN and both brothers had worked for Arctic Cat in the past. Small world! So after this 15 minute chat she hands my bill of sale back and says since the tractor is inoperable it's viewed as parts so you're good to go and have a nice evening. And go we went!

After crossing the border into the USA my clunky old Verizon flip phone started to work so I called a fellow Stakker that lived in the area for a motel recommendation. So we headed down the road to Crosby ND and got a good meal and spent the night at the "Guardian Inn". We were beat!

Some pictures of the last fuel stop in Yellow Grass SK.

[Phil Johnson]

Mark, the Maple Leaf trucks were built by GM of Canada. They were a heavy duty Chevrolet truck and used some GMC components.

[casertractor]

Some or all of those Maple Leaf trucks were made in Canada at Oshawa Ontario