We worked the Sugar Beet Harvest with American Crystal Sugar Company in the fall of 2015. We started the beginning of October and worked through the third week of October. The working season fluctuates with the weather, and can last anywhere between two weeks and a month and a half. American Crystal Sugar hires workers for their locations in Minnesota and North Dakota. This is our combined account of our first experience working at the Sugar Beet Harvest (K for Kenny, A for Angelica).
How did you find out about the Beet Harvest?
The Sugar Beet Harvest is well advertised on websites that focus on workamping. We discovered the Beet Harvest through the Workampers Facebook page, but have since seen it in Workamper News and Cool Works. If you are interested in workamping, you will probably run across an advertisement for the Beet Harvest sooner or later. |
What was the application process like?
I requested an application at the Sugar Beet Harvest website. It looks like they added an online application this year, as well. We got a phone call after our applications had been reviewed and they asked some questions that would help them evaluate the best positions for us. We got a few more phone calls as the start date approached with information about our campsite, worksite, and start date. When you get to your work location, the orientation process starts with doing tax paperwork and signing release forms. Then, you’ll watch a short safety video and get assigned to an onsite training. Our onsite training was a few days later and took place during daytime hours when we could watch people operating the machines. There were about 50 of us at the training, all who would be working the night shift with us. If you’re ground crew like us, you’ll learn about the beet piler control panel, how to take beet samples, the proper way to shovel beets, and how to be safe around the machine. It’s simple stuff, but I still didn’t feel too confident when I left. Luckily, our first few shifts were short and there weren’t many trucks yet, giving us time to get accustomed to the machine. |
Where was your job site?
Drayton, North Dakota. About thirty miles south of Canada, one hundred miles south of Winnepeg, Manitoba, and a mile from Minnesota, Drayton is a small town in the Red River Valley, one of the flattest expanses on Earth. The area is just mind-bendingly flat. The American Crystal Sugar Company has a beet sugar processing plant here. |
What’s Drayton, North Dakota like?
Flat. The wind blows fairly constantly from one direction to the other, the same direction all day. There are no natural obstacles to block the wind, like a ridge or a hill, so, the wind just keeps blowing. It seems to die down some after the sun goes down, most days, but sometimes it just keeps on all night. Drayton is a small town, and the Beet Harvest is its time to shine. On our second day in town, we walked from our campground on the north end of town to the southern entrance of the town from I-29 in about twenty minutes, taking time along the way to read signs and local histories. We did not encounter any other pedestrians on our journey. There are a couple of bars in town, of which we only visited to buy some beer and vodka to go. The one we stopped at for beer seemed like a good enough place, and we were invited for some sort of potluck dinner starting at five that evening, but as it was nine in the morning after a twelve hour work shift when we were in there, we begged off the invite. The grocery store, JD’s Riverview Market, is a great little store, has all the essentials, and some real gems, such as the locally smoked sausages. We more than filled up on smoked sausage sticks during our time in Drayton. I still crave them! There is a nice park, with a 9-hole golf course skirting it. We would take the dog to the park to play ball in the afternoon before heading to our shift, and saw a foursome playing golf one day. But, that was the only time I saw golfers, and I figure it is on account of the blowing wind. There was also a convenience store about a quarter mile from our campground, and they sold pizza, hamburgers, and highly-caffeinated coffee. |
What did you do in Drayton?
Mostly, we worked. Working at a beet pile for twelve hours straight from 8pm to 8am tends to keep a person occupied and to make a body tired. We would go to the grocery store to get supplies, go the the bar to buy beer, and go the park to play with the dog. For entertainment, we read the local newspapers, and we had a ball! We would plan our escape in the atlas. We slept a good part of the day away, although we never got our sleep schedules normalized, and would only end up sleeping around six or seven hours a day. |