Lögberg-Heimskringla - 08.04.2005, Blaðsíða 10

10 « Lögberg-Heimskringla * Friday 8 April 2005
Services are still conducted at the church, though noton a regular basis.
A church with a long history

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David Jon Fuller
Wynyard, SK
The Wynyard Unitarian
Church has a history that dates
back nearly a century.
The Quill Lake Congrega-
tion was organized August 19,
1906 as an independent Icelan-
dic church in the home of Sig-
urjon Sveinson. Members later
met in the Rindar store and the
Good Templars Hall, and in
1921 the present building, the
“Brick Church” was built. In
the 1930s, it was the largest
Unitarian congregation hall in
Canada.
The church, with its meet-
ing room in the basement, was
the site of many public gather-
ings, simply because it was one
of the largest buildings in the
area.
The congregation was
very active; the Day Alliance,
originally known as Framsokn,
wl„
The church was originally an Icelandic Lutheran Church built
in 1921, for a congregation that had been established in 1906.
raised nearly $35,000 for chari-
ty between 1908 and 1958. The
Evening Alliance, formed in
1946 by younger members un-
able to attend the Day Alliance
meetings also raised money for heritage site.
the community. The Evening
Alliance w.as active well into
the 1970s.
Services are still held in the
church, now recognized as a
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Yatnabyggð aims for more personal Convention
David Jón Fuller
Wynyard/Foam Lake, SK
The Vatnabyggð Icelandic
Club normally holds its þorra-
blót in March, but this year is
different — the INL is coming
to town.
As host chapter to the 86th
annual general meeting of the
Icelandic National League of
North America, the Vatnabyggð
club has moved its midwinter
feast to coincide with the three-
day convention, taking place on
Saturday night. The convention
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runs April 28 to May 1.
Club president Joan Eyolf-
son Cadham says it was a logical
decision. “There was no way we
were going to have the energy
to do two jevents] and it sure
seemed like a good way to pro-
vide a break between the brain-
storming session all Saturday
afternoon and the AGM Sunday
morning.”
Joan says the convention as a
whole is an opportunity to show-
case the Vatnabyggð area, which
includes Foam Lake, Wynyard,
Elfros, Leslie, Mozart, Kanda-
har, Dafoe and Wadena, where
many Icelanders settled. Some
came directly from Iceland; oth-
ers came from other Icelandic
settlements in North Dakota,
Manitoba, or Ontario.
The convention will include
“a look at the area of the Ice-
landic people,” she says. “We’ll
spend time telling some of our
stories from the past, looking
at some of the businesses and
opportunities now, and looking
towards some of the future pos-
sibilities.”
One of those possibilities
is the use of biodiesel, which is
an altemative fuel containing no
petroleum which “can be used
in compression-ignition (diesel)
engines with little or no modi-
fications,” according to the Na-
tional Biodiesel board.
Another growth industry is
birdwatching in the Quill Lakes
area. “The flocks of geese in the
' fall are uncountable,” says Joan.
“I’ve seen them horizon to hori-
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being held in the Vatnabyggð district
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zon, as they head off feeding.”
Attendance is expected to
be around two hundred for the
convention in Wynyard, and
five hundred for the þorrablót
in Foam Lake, traditionally a
well-attended event in the com-
munity.
The format of the conven-
tion will be different this year,
she adds. There will not be
speakers over lunch hour, and
sessions will be organized to
encourage face-to-face interac-
tion.
“I’ve spent a lot of time at
three-day conferences in smoky
rooms, where we ate too many
doughnuts and drank too much
coffee, spent way too much time
sitting and listening to yet anoth-
er person talking and never get-
ting to meet anyone,” she says.
She usually left the conferences
exhausted without having had
the chance to meet anyone.
“The one thing that I knew,
and everybody in Vatnabyggð
agreed on, was that we needed a
conference with a certain move-
ment, that gave people a chance
to get out, walk around, get fresh
air, get to meet each other, talk
to the other delegates.”
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