A little known orchard on the prairies is a finalist for a Tourism Industry Association of Canada award this fall. 

Over the Hill Orchards near Lumsden, owned and operated by Dean and Sylvia Kreutzer, has been nominated for the Hilton Small Business of the Year Award. 

"To be a finalist is amazing," said Dean Kreutzer. "It's the top three in Canada, it's kind of hard to believe because there's so many businesses out there. In some ways, it doesn't seem real. We're such a small company and what we're doing seems so small in some ways that to be considered as a finalist in Canada just doesn't seem possible." 

The humble couple quit their 9-5 jobs 20 years ago with a dream of opening their own orchard and winery. Kreutzer said he "didn't have a sniff" at that time of the skills and knowledge it takes to run an orchard in Saskatchewan. 

"You know, [I was] a computer programmer, that grew up in the city; had no idea about even living on an acreage outside of the city. The learning curve was pretty much vertical. I killed hundreds and hundreds of trees, and that's kind of how I learned: from my failures. There was a lot of failures, but you know I'm now at the point, we have a lot of unique things that we're doing that no one else is doing."

Perhaps the most impossible-seeming unique thing Dean and Sylvia are now doing is growing, and harvesting from, peach trees in the middle of Saskatchewan.  

"You can't grow peaches in Saskatchewan," said Dean, "but I am. It's really hard, but you know the feeling of the joy and just being able to pick your own peaches in Saskatchewan is just awesome."

With a mix of ingenuity, sweat equity, and years of trial and error, the Kreutzer's are also growing a variety of other fruit plants and trees that are typically very rare, or non-existent on the prairies. 

"I'm growing wine grapes from all over the world. Seedless grapes from California, blackberries from Arkansas, strawberries from France, all of these different fruits that you can't grow here because the temperature is too cold in the winter. I've come up with different ways that I can get them to survive."

Located about 13 km south of Lumsden near the Wascana Valley, Kreuzter says drawing tourists into the semi-remote location can be a challenge. 

"It's a slow trickle, a lot of people just don't know about us, and that's the problem. We've been here 20 years but it's not like we have a million-dollar budget. If you had a place, say in the Okanagan, there's so many tourists that come through, there's a lot of people that walk by. We're 10km off the #11 highway, it's more difficult."

Despite some setbacks in the orchard due to extremely cold winters, summer drought, and other environmental reasons, Kreutzer said the "farm to fork" dinners the orchard hosts, featuring locally produced meals by a variety of Saskatchewan chefs, has been thriving. 

"Inside the winery has done quite well, the suppers are selling very good, so at least something's doing well." 

Kreutzer said 2019 has been one of the couple's most difficult years in the orchard to date, but that won't stop them from continuing to challenge the odds. 

"I'm the type of person, I need to have a challenge. If I went to Kelowna or the Niagra area, I'd be just one of hundreds of other people doing the same thing. That's not in my personality.  In Saskatchewan, there's a reason why people don't do that here, it's because it's really hard, and you really have to suffer and kind of learn and fail, and that sort of thing. So it's a lot harder, but we're still doing it, we're still surviving and obviously in the eyes of the judges what we've done and accomplished is worthy of this honour."

Click here for more information about the offerings at Over the Hill Orchards.

The winners of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada awards will be announced on November 20.