All in a day’s work…at the auction

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Marcus Day

Maple Creek News

On Friday morning, I travelled to a galaxy far, far away, where the inhabitants communicate throughn rapid-fire chants and hand gestures that are sometimes barely a twitch, sometimes extravagant sweeps.

The air was also filled with a heavy, earthy odour, that impregnated my skin and clothes for days.

In a literal sense, the first sentence is only half-true, but in essence it is totally true, even though the so-called galaxy was S.A.L.E. Cowtown Livestock Exchange, and its distance from Maple Creek barely 1.5 kilometres.

With the spirit of a pioneer I ventured boldly into the unknown at 8.30am, my head extremely fuzzy after a near sleepless night in anticipation of the Canadian Livestock Auctioneer Championship. My hope was to disguise my alien status as much as possible by blending in with all the western hats. A name tag would have helped, of course, giving me the legitimacy that my English accent denied me.

I plonked myself and my camera bag in the middle of the first bleacher, directly in line with the rostrum for the auctioneer, MC, and support staff. This was to be my kingdom, I decided, at least until Tyler Cronkhite had finished doing his stuff.

I guesstimated he would be taking the mic at about midday. According to the program he was auctioneer#13 out of 41. Was that a bad omen, especially on a Friday?

Looking around at the population in this strange world, I felt I could be an outsider in an episode of Dallas; all about were weather-beaten cowboys poring over programs, no doubt checking total weights and average weights, head counts, cattle types, numbers and lots. One or two younger cowboys arrived with spouses and babies.

Others strolled about with a touch of swagger. Every inch of them exuded confidence and back-slapping good humour. They belonged.

Which one was JR? I wondered. Allan Lively? No, he doesn’t have that scheming Ewing grin.

Hard to imagine him telling a flustered Cliff Barnes-type rival: “I’m amazed you’re not a better loser, after all the experience you’ve had.”

I did a quick recce of my surroundings. I was at the bottom of a tiered, semi-circular seating area. In front of me were seats reserved for buyers, judges and a camera/video crew, and beyond that the sawdust pit where the cattle were released through a giant flap. The black stand on the other side of the pit was big enough for the auctioneer, the MC and two ladies who peered into computer monitors, no doubt recording information from each draft, which was flashed up on to an elevated screen. One part of the screen was headed “sold”, the other part “selling”.

Just watching them made me stressed. It’s not a job for daydreamers or the hard of hearing.

For the longest while I sat terrified that a tic, sneeze, or sudden movement could be interpreted as a bid, and put me in a financial black hole.

In my nightmare, the bid price would show $1,000, and the buyer: MD-116 Harder St.

Each time I raised my camera, I did so extremely slowly, only to find the auctioneer staring right at me through the lens. Or so it seemed.

It was always a relief when his gaze was diverted by Lively, Perlich and Titan – names that recurred through the day.

With each chant, I struggled mightily, and vainly, to decipher the words between the numbers. Did they pad out the sentences with gobbledegook to sustain the rhythm?

Later, I discovered that they insert filler words into the gaps. It is an amazing skill, not unlike rap.

Occasionally, once the chant had stopped, there would be a brief back-and-forth with the buyer about a new pen.

Every t  aime, the pen issue came up, my right hand would instinctively go to my top pocket.

For a nano-second I would think of offering one of my leaky biros, thus justifying my presence.

For a nano-second, I would think about standing up in full view of cameras and providing this service.

Fortunately, the better half of my brain repeatedly intervened to stop such insanity.

What a pity that my brain didn’t function so well towards the end of the event when I suddenly became part of the proceedings for all of … well, it must have been about ten seconds.

The episode had a dream-like quality, and still does in the telling.

Why, I wondered, was the man in the auctioneering stand pointing at me?

Surely, he was looking at someone else; the people behind me, probably, or a past champion. Someone who belonged. A JR type, perhaps.

I gazed back vacantly – probably for five of those seconds – until something mercifully clicked. OMG, the man in the stand was Dean Edge, a world champion, and he was singling me out because I was wearing a Rafter R Brewing hoodie – one of the black-box items being auctioned off.

As realization coloured my face, I heard a smattering of laughter all about. I joined in and in my nervous confusion elbowed the man next to me. Not once, but twice.

I then pointed at Dean, as if to say: Hey buddy, you definitely had the Edge on me this time.

It was a surreal moment, fitting for an alien lost in deep space.

My time in a far, far away galaxy was soon at an end.

Although I didn’t return with moon rocks,  it still proved one helluva ride, as my inner cowboy might have said