The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture is selling farmland through the IronPlanet Daily Marketplace. In total, 48 lots containing 75 parcels of land are available to be purchased. Bidding opens October 23rd and will close on November 6, 7, and 9, 2017.

Finning’s Spencer Smirl discusses the daily disciplines that protect your equipment investment.

By Jeff Howard for IronPlanet

It may seem early in the season, but as hearty Canadians head into the challenging winter season ahead, they’ll be looking to fine tune equipment fleets. On Wednesday, September 21, Edmonton will welcome IronPlanet’s 1.5 million registered bidders to an online only auction. Register to bid and check out more than 500 items online or at our Acheson, Alberta yard today!

The Canadian Farmer’s Almanac predicts “downright frigid” winter weather over parts of the Rockies, Prairies, Great Lakes, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. What else is new?

But for Canadian equipment owners, the Almanac’s August forecast means it’s time to prepare for that winter state of mind. To get a few heavy equipment winter operation reminders, we turned to Spencer Smirl, (pictured above on the right), Finning Canada’s fleet manager for the Site C Clean Energy project near Fort St. John, B.C.

Why Spencer? Well, he just happens to be Canada’s foremost cold weather equipment specialist, a reputation that’s well earned. Over the last five years, he’s kept machines going at both Poles — as a heavy duty mechanic at Finning’s Ekati operation near the Arctic Circle and during “The Coldest Journey”, the first ever attempt to cross the Antarctic in winter. As the lead mechanic for the expedition, Spencer successfully kept two D6Ns chugging in temperatures that reached minus-100 Celsius (that’s minus-148 Fahrenheit for you “southerners”).

Kelowna-based company disposes of older units through auction, adds new machines.

For BC General Contracting Inc. business is brisk, despite the season’s slow start due to an unhurried municipal approvals process.

The award-winning Westbank, a BC-based company which focuses primarily on subdivision prep work, is now booked steadily until next summer.

With a strong book of business ahead, BCGC owners Beau and Cain Derickson figured it was time to modernize their fleet. “We wanted to do a full changeover of our equipment that was houred up,” said Beau from his office near Kelowna, in the province’s interior. “They weren’t in bad shape, it’s just that we were looking at a pretty big maintenance bill and we couldn’t risk any downtime.” This kind of advance planning helped BCGC win a BC Achievement Foundation Award as business of the year in 2009.

For help with the transition to newer iron, the Dericksons looked to Finning Canada, the local Caterpillar dealer, which offered the range of new machines BCGC was looking for. An added bonus was the ability to dispose of older iron through Finning’s new auction sales channel, unveiled about a year ago.

Finning-hosted Cat Auction Services events feature more than just Cat equipment

It was August last year when the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer, Finning, agreed to jointly market used heavy equipment in western Canada through Cat Auction Services, IronPlanet’s unreserved auction marketplace. The move enabled Finning to offer its customers an auction alternative they can count on. It also connects western Canadian equipment owners with IronPlanet’s 1.5 million registered online users around the globe. 

Although it’s only July, it’s not hard to imagine the unavoidable dropping temperatures, falling snow and gathering ice that will soon announce the start of Canada's and parts of the Northeastern United States' long winter season. With colder and more hazardous weather around the corner, used equipment owners have some serious decisions to make about which items to keep in their fleets and which to sell.

Fortunately, the approaching end of warm weather is not an issue in many other geographic areas around the world. Areas in the United States, such as Florida, Texas, California and Arizona, as well as countries in South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa will continue to experience high temperatures that make ongoing road construction more manageable. This offers advantages for heavy equipment owners who are focused on inventory management and seeking a new home for a selection of items. In addition, there is high demand for older equipment in developing countries due to ease of repair and operation.

But how do owners interested in selling equipment reach these distant audiences? Shipping equipment to onsite auctions can be expensive and time consuming. And, during these colder months, potential buyers may not want to travel to onsite auctions (i.e. experience delays and cancellations) during potentially hazardous conditions or view equipment in possible extreme cold temperatures. If auctions do take place, low attendance can mean a poor return for sellers.

Wildfires that forced the evacuation of 88,000 people from the city of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta nearly three weeks ago continue to burn. Alberta officials say the fire now covers more than 2,000 square miles. It destroyed 2,432 structures in the city and damaged another 530. The good news is 25,000 structures were saved. Red Cross and Finning Canada have stepped forward in support of evacuees.

Tragically, two people, one the daughter of a deputy fire chief, died in a vehicle collision after escaping the inferno that engulfed their town. The Fort McMurray fire grew quickly, from just 200 acres to 6000 acres within two hours of being discovered on May 1; two days later, all of Fort McMurray, a community that supports the huge oil sands industry in the region, was placed under a mandatory evacuation order.

Although fire conditions remain extreme in the region, Fort McMurray evacuees should begin returning home June 1. Cooler temperatures and rain are helping firefighters battle the blaze.

This week, we kick off a new weekly blog feature, "Canadian Perspectives" from our team at IronPlanet, Canada.

Most people know that Canada’s a big place, 2nd only to Russia in land mass (the U.S. ranks 3rd). So not having to drag the equipment you want to sell to an auction site hundreds of miles away is a real bonus. Some Albertan equipment owners, who were in attendance at a recent Cat Auction Services auction in Edmonton, wholeheartedly agree. The equipment management team from a Calgary-based operation with nearly 200 pieces of used heavy equipment scattered from coast to coast made the difficult decision to trim the fleet. A sizeable portion was parked against a fence due to a sputtering economy. The equipment director’s thinking was this - as inactive units age, potential repair and maintenance bills could potentially balloon.